The Facebook group Meta performed better than analysts had expected in the past quarter, despite a drop in sales. The relief of investors erupted in a price jump of more than 18 percent in after-hours trading. Meta also announced an additional $40 billion share repurchase.

In the past quarter, sales fell by four percent year-on-year to a good 32.16 billion dollars (around 29.3 billion euros). On the market, revenues of 31.5 billion dollars were expected. Meta, with its two business pillars Facebook and Instagram, was already hit by the slowdown in the online advertising market in the previous quarters. Overall, quarterly earnings fell 55 percent to $4.65 billion.

Meanwhile, the number of users continues to grow. Facebook now has two billion daily active users - an increase of 16 million within three months. At least one Meta app was last used by 2.96 billion users per day, up from 2.93 billion three months earlier.