A couple of years ago, Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META -0.52%) was a trillion-dollar company. However, the tech giant has lost a substantial amount of its value over the past two years. (Meta's market cap is $672 billion as of this writing.) Still, there are excellent reasons to think the social media specialist can rejoin the exclusive group of corporations worth $1 trillion, as the company has plenty of growth opportunities, including using artificial intelligence (AI) to render parts of its business more profitable.
Let's dig into why Meta has a good chance of clocking the compound annual growth rate of about 10.4% it needs in the next three years to become a trillion-dollar stock again.
How Meta Platforms is using AI
AI and its applications come in many different shapes and sizes. There are a few ways in which Meta Platforms is getting in on the act. First, the company is using AI-based recommendations across its websites and apps. Meta Platforms now has over 3 billion daily active users. Analyzing its users' data, preferences, and patterns allows AI to recommend relevant content.
For instance, Meta Platforms' Reels -- a short-form video format designed to compete with the now extremely popular TikTok -- has been growing partly thanks to AI recommendations driving greater engagement (i.e., people watching more Reels than they otherwise would). The result? In its first-quarter earnings conference call, management reported that thanks to AI, Reels monetization was up by 30% and 40% quarter over quarter on Instagram and Facebook, respectively.
There is another way in which Meta Platforms is making noise in the AI space. The company granted the research community access to its Large Language Model Meta AI (LLaMA) in February. LLaMA is a form of generative AI -- the same breed as ChatGPT -- that can produce content in the form of text in response to a user's input.
While Meta Platforms isn't using LLaMA to power any of its products yet, the company released it to the research community to democratize access to this kind of technology and help advance the field.
Lucrative growth opportunities
Meta Platforms' use of AI should help improve the company's efficiency in recommending content and placing targeted ads on its websites and apps. That's good news for the business. While the advertising market remains down, as it has been for the better part of the past year and a half, that will change once economic conditions improve.
Even with a potential recession, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve, things should get better well before 2027, allowing Meta Platforms' revenue and earnings to grow more rapidly. And that's before we mention other opportunities that will be important for Meta across the next few years. Here's an example: The company's click-to-ads messaging on WhatsApp has reached a $10 billion revenue run rate. While that is still a small fraction of Meta Platforms' annual revenue -- it reported $28.6 billion in sales in Q1, a 3% year over year increase -- the impact of this feature is increasing rapidly and should contribute meaningfully to the company's top line relatively shortly.
Beyond the next four years
Meta Platforms' stock is still down from the highs it reached in mid-2021, but the company has been slowly rebounding. That is likely due to a combination of factors. First, the shares had become too attractive to ignore. Even now, the tech company's forward price-to-earnings and forward price-to-sales ratios look much more reasonable than in early 2022.
META PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
Second, the market is forward-looking, and Meta Platforms is working on several projects that could boost revenue over the long run, even beyond the ones mentioned above. For instance, the company continues to invest money into the metaverse, which could be a trillion-dollar opportunity. Finally, Meta Platforms has been seeking to cut expenses to improve efficiency and boost the bottom line. The company has slowed hiring and instituted several rounds of layoffs, among other measures.
Meta Platforms should benefit from these initiatives in the short run, potentially allowing it to join the trillion-dollar club again by 2027. And more importantly, the tech stock remains an excellent long-term pick.
