What would you consider to be an attractive return on investment? Fifteen percent annual returns? Or maybe 20%? Plenty of stocks can deliver such gains over the short term. But doing it over a longer stretch thins out the herd considerably.
However, I can think of one growth stock that has been an even bigger winner. Meta Platforms (META 1.18%) has soared 8x over the last 10 years, translating to a compound annual growth rate of around 23%. Even better, this high-flying stock is still a screaming buy with the potential to go much higher.
Image source: Getty Images.
What's behind Meta's meteoric rise?
I can sum up the reason for Meta's huge gains over the last decade in one word: eyeballs. The company's family of apps -- primarily Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp -- continues to attract an increasing number of users. And those users represent a massive audience that advertisers want to reach.
In March 2025, an average of 3.43 billion people used at least one of Meta's four key apps daily. Two things stand out to me about this number. First, it represents nearly 42% of the world's population. Second, it's 6% higher than the level from the first quarter of 2024.
This audience is becoming increasingly valuable to advertisers, too. Meta's average price per ad rose by 10% year over year in the first quarter of this year. The combination of more users and higher ad prices helped grow the company's revenue in Q1 by 16% year over year. On a constant-currency basis, that growth would have been 19%.
And there's more. Meta has focused on improving profitability even while investing heavily in research and development for its Reality Labs segment. Over the last 10 years, the company's earnings on a trailing 12-month basis have skyrocketed by roughly 2,330%.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
Why Meta is still a screaming buy
I think Meta Platforms stock is still a screaming buy because the company has tremendous growth prospects over the next 10 years. Much of this growth will come from advertising.
Meta is using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its ability to target the customers that will be most interested in products offered by advertisers. The company's goal is to develop agentic AI that can handle the entire advertising process -- from creating ads to targeting prospective customers -- and deliver greater returns on investment.
Expanding the audience for those advertisers is another major priority. Threads, Meta's newest social media app, is one way it's achieving this objective. The app now has more than 350 million monthly active users. Meta is also focused on creating more engaging experiences that attract and retain users. It's deploying AI to generate content that's personalized for users, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks that interactive content will be available in the near future.
I also predict that Meta's smart (internet-connected) devices will become increasingly important to its success over the next decade. AI glasses could be the game changer on this front. Zuckerberg said in Meta's Q1 earnings call, "Glasses are the ideal form factor for both AI and the metaverse. They enable you to let an AI see what you see, hear what you hear, and talk to you throughout the day." He added, "More than a billion people worldwide wear glasses today, and it seems highly likely that these will become AI glasses over the next 5 to 10 years."
What could get in the way of Meta's success?
Two main obstacles could get in the way of Meta being the winner that I think it will be in the coming years.
First, regulatory agencies in various countries could slow Meta's growth. For example, the European Commission recently announced that the company's subscription for its no-advertising model isn't compliant with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Meta plans to appeal this decision. However, it could still be forced to modify its model somewhat to comply with DMA, and this could hurt the company's European revenue growth.
Second, Meta faces stiff competition. The company has benefited to some extent from TikTok's troubles in the U.S., but TikTok remains a formidable rival. Several companies with deep pockets are also targeting AI glasses, including Alphabet's Google and Apple. There's no guarantee that Meta will be as successful as I expect in this market.
However, Meta has dealt with regulatory and competitive challenges pretty well in the past. I suspect it will continue to do so in the future. Although I wouldn't bet on another 8x gain over the next 10 years, this growth stock should still deliver impressive returns.
