06:30 AM EST, 01/30/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Meta Platforms' ( META ) first-quarter revenue outlook fell short of market estimates at the midpoint, but shares of the technology giant rose early Thursday as it recorded better-than-expected results in the preceding three-month period.

The Facebook parent anticipates revenue to come in between $39.5 billion and $41.8 billion in the ongoing quarter, reflecting annual growth of 8% to 15%, Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said in a late Wednesday conference call. The outlook range's midpoint of $40.65 billion is below the current consensus on FactSet for $41.55 billion, according to MT Newswires' calculations.

"Our guidance assumes foreign currency is an approximately 3% headwind to year-over-year total revenue growth based on current exchange rates," Li said on the call, according to a FactSet transcript. "This also reflects the effect of lapping leap day in the first quarter of 2024."

The company, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, reported net income of $8.02 a share for the December quarter, up from $5.33 the year before. The Street expected GAAP EPS of $6.76. Overall revenue advanced 21% year over year to $48.39 billion, ahead of the average analyst estimate of $46.99 billion. Meta's stock was up 2.7% in premarket activity.

"We continue to make good progress on (artificial intelligence), glasses and the future of social media," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. "I'm excited to see these efforts scale further in 2025."

Advertising revenue grew to $46.78 billion from $38.71 billion in the prior-year quarter. "Within ad revenue, the online commerce vertical was the largest contributor to year-over-year growth," according to Li. Average price per ad and aggregate ad impressions inclined 14% and 6%, respectively.

Daily active users in the company's family of apps, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, increased 5% to 3.35 billion on average for December. Revenue in Meta's business and research unit, Reality Labs, edged up to $1.08 billion from $1.07 billion last year, but its operational loss rose to $4.97 billion from $4.65 billion.

The tech giant expects the investments it's making in its core business to enable it to continue generating "strong revenue growth" throughout the current year, Li said. Total expenses for 2025 are pegged at $114 billion to $119 billion, with infrastructure costs seen as the "single largest driver" of expense growth, according to the CFO.

Capital expenditures are forecast to be in a range of $60 billion to $65 billion for the full year 2025, driven by "increased investment to support both our generative AI efforts and core business," Li said on the call. In the previous year, Meta's capital expenditures totaled $39.23 billion.

"In AI, I expect that this is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant," Zuckerberg said on the call. "We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning and that will defend our values and interests abroad and I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock."