Meta (NASDAQ: META) is a publicly listed company headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States that owns 6 consumer brands, and has 4 recorded transactions.[1][2]
Meta was called Facebook until 2021, when it renamed itself after the virtual worlds it was then betting on. It owns four of the most used communication services in the world, and American regulators spent years arguing in court that two of those were bought specifically to remove competitors.
Read from Meta's latest annual filing[1]. Each line gives the sentence the filing uses, copied word for word.
We report our financial results for our two reportable segments: Family of Apps (FoA) and Reality Labs (RL).
For example, we are currently the subject of multiple putative class action suits in connection with our platform and user data practices and the misuse of certain data by a developer that shared such data with third parties in violation of our terms and policies; the disclosure of our earnings results for the second quarter of 2018; our acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as other alleged anticompetitive conduct;
In addition, although we were able to successfully complete the acquisition after prevailing in federal court, the FTC sought to enjoin our proposed acquisition of Within Unlimited.
For example, we completed our divestiture of Giphy in 2023 following the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority's order directing us to divest Giphy post-acquisition.
Headline figures from Meta's annual reports filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in USD as reported, fiscal years ending 2020–2025. Revenue moved from $86bn to $201bn, an average of 18.5% a year (calculated).
| Fiscal year ended | Revenue | Operating income | Operating margin | Net income | Total assets | Long-term debt | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $201bn | $83.3bn | 41.4% | $60.5bn | $366bn | $58.7bn | 10-K | |
| $164.5bn | $69.4bn | 42.2% | $62.4bn | $276.1bn | $28.8bn | 10-K | |
| $134.9bn | $46.8bn | 34.7% | $39.1bn | $229.6bn | $18.4bn | 10-K | |
| $116.6bn | $28.9bn | 24.8% | $23.2bn | $185.7bn | $9.92bn | 10-K | |
| $117.9bn | $46.8bn | 39.6% | $39.4bn | $166bn | $0 | 10-K | |
| $86bn | $32.7bn | 38.0% | $29.1bn | $159.3bn | — | 10-K |
Source: SEC XBRL company facts. A dash means the company did not report that line in a form we could read. Figures for a year can be restated in a later filing; the latest filing's number is shown.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
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Meta acquired Giphy for a reported $315 million without notifying the British competition regulator in advance, which it was not required to do. The Competition and Markets Authority opened an inquiry after the fact and ultimately ordered the acquisition unwound.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for approximately $19 billion in cash and stock, the largest sum ever paid for a venture-backed company at the time. The European Commission cleared the deal in October 2014.
Facebook acquired Instagram, then a thirteen-person company with no revenue, for about $1 billion in cash and stock. The final consideration fell as Facebook shares declined between announcement and closing.
Meta sold Giphy to Shutterstock for a reported $53 million, about a sixth of what it had paid three years earlier, to comply with the divestiture ordered by the Competition and Markets Authority.
Meta controlled this brand in the past. Each row shows when the ownership ended and who holds the brand now, so a page that once said Meta owned it still shows why it no longer does.
| Brand | Owned until | Owner today |
|---|---|---|
| GIPHY | May 2023 | Shutterstock |
| Case | Regulator | Decision | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook, Inc (now Meta Platforms, Inc) / Giphy, Inc | cma | cleared with remedies | 18 October 2022 |
| Facebook / Instagram Inc | cma | cleared | 14 August 2012 |
The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) keeps an open register of legal entities. Each entity reports its own parents. We show it as a cross-check on the ownership recorded on this page, which is built from filings.
The documents behind the figures on this page, as listed in the SEC's EDGAR index. Each links to the filing itself.
| Filed | Form | What it declares |
|---|---|---|
| 10-Q | Quarterly report | |
| 8-K | Results of operations and financial condition | |
| 8-K | Results of a shareholder vote | |
| 8-K | Other events | |
| 10-Q | Quarterly report | |
| 8-K | Results of operations and financial condition | |
| 8-K | Departure or appointment of directors or officers | |
| 8-K | Results of operations and financial condition | |
| 8-K | Departure or appointment of directors or officers | |
| 8-K | Departure or appointment of directors or officers | |
| 8-K | Other events | |
| 8-K | Other events | |
| 10-Q | Quarterly report | |
| 8-K | Results of operations and financial condition |
Meta owns 6 consumer brands tracked here, including Instagram, Meta Quest, Threads, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger.
Yes. Meta is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States and was founded in 2004.
Meta is a publicly listed company owned by its shareholders; it trades as META on the NASDAQ.
The most recent completed acquisition recorded here is GIPHY on 15 May 2020.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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