Meta Q1 2026: $56.3B Revenue Up 33%, Profit Up 61% — But Stock Drops 8.5% After AI Capex Raised to $145B (April 30, 2026)

Meta Platforms on April 29, 2026 reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $56.3 billion, up 33% year-over-year, and net income of $26.8 billion, up 61%. Yet the stock fell 8.55% on April 30 to close at $611.91 after CFO Susan Li raised full-year AI capital-expenditure guidance to $125–$145 billion, up from the prior $115–$135 billion range.

What Happened

In the official press release on its investor relations site, Meta said Q1 2026 revenue grew 33% (29% on a constant-currency basis) to $56.3 billion. Operating income rose 30% to $22.9 billion, GAAP net income jumped 61% to $26.8 billion, and adjusted earnings came in at $7.31 per share, beating the $6.65 consensus.

The market reaction was negative anyway. After the earnings call, Meta shares slid April 30 to close at $611.91, an 8.55% single-day drop. The trigger was the company's revised 2026 capex range of $125–$145 billion — at the high end, nearly double 2025's spend and more than 2024 and 2025 combined. On the call, Mark Zuckerberg fielded a pointed question about visible return on this AI investment and replied that it was "a very technical question," a line several reporters at Fortune and Sherwood News flagged as the moment investors started selling.

Key Details

• Revenue: $56.3B, up 33% year-over-year (29% constant-currency).
• Profit: $26.8B GAAP net income, up 61%; operating income $22.9B, up 30%.
• Adjusted EPS: $7.31 vs. $6.65 consensus.
• Q1 capex: $19.84 billion, including principal payments on finance leases.
• Full-year 2026 capex guidance: raised to $125–$145B from $115–$135B, citing elevated component pricing and rising data-center costs.
• Q2 2026 revenue guidance: $58–$61B.
• Family Daily Active People (DAP): 3.56B in March 2026, up 4% year-over-year but down more than 5% from Q4 2025 — and below the 3.62B Wall Street consensus.
• Average price per ad: up 12% year-over-year.
• Stock close, April 30: $611.91, down 8.55% on the session.

What Developers and Users Are Saying

On Hacker News and r/stocks the dominant reaction is that strong fundamentals were overshadowed by the sheer scale of the capex jump. Multiple commenters note that the $125–$145B range arrives in the same week Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon all announced double-digit-billion capex increases, pushing the four hyperscalers' combined 2026 capex past $725 billion. Engineers reacting on X focused on the MTIA roadmap — Meta's custom inference silicon partnership with Broadcom, recently extended through 2029 — as the only credible path to bringing per-token costs down enough to justify the spend. The most common skeptic line: Meta still has not shown a consumer AI product with the kind of paid attach rate OpenAI and Anthropic enjoy.

What This Means for Developers

For developers building on Meta's platforms, three things change in the near term. First, Llama-family open-weight models are likely to keep getting cheaper and more capable as Meta amortizes its training fleet over more model generations. Second, Reels monetization tooling — explicitly called out on the call — gets new ad-format APIs and AI-driven creative tools through 2026. Third, Meta's WhatsApp Business and Threads APIs are expected to inherit the same agentic-messaging surfaces the company is building internally. None of this requires action today, but anyone planning a 2026 launch on Meta's developer platforms should watch the Q2 update for concrete API timelines.

What's Next

Meta guided Q2 2026 revenue to $58–$61B and reiterated that capex will remain elevated into 2027 as MTIA chip volumes ramp. Watch for: the next Llama release, expected at Connect 2026 later this year; concrete DAP recovery vs. the surprise Q1 sequential dip; and whether Reels ad-load increases continue to hold up the average-price-per-ad number.

Sources

• Meta Investor Relations — Q1 2026 Press Release — primary source for revenue, profit and capex figures.
• CNBC: Meta Q1 2026 earnings report — DAP miss and Wall Street reaction.
• Yahoo Finance: Stock drop after capex raise — April 30 price action.
• Fortune: Zuckerberg on AI ROI — direct earnings-call quotes.
• Sherwood News: Meta posts an earnings beat — and a huge capex bill
• The Tech Portal: Meta Q1 2026 results