San Francisco, Feb 2 (IANS): Meta (formerly Facebook) has surprised the market analysts with posting better-than-expected results for its quarter that ended December 31, 2022, and announcing a $40 billion stock buyback.

The company reported a revenue of $32.17 billion for the fourth quarter (down four per cent Y-o-Y) and $116.61 billion for the full year.

Meta said that its headcount increased 20 per cent (year-over-year) to 86,482 as of December 31. That number included a large chunk of more than 11,000 workers the company fired in November.

"Our community continues to grow and I'm pleased with the strong engagement across our apps. Facebook just reached the milestone of 2 billion daily actives," said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO.

"The progress we're making on our AI discovery engine and Reels are major drivers of this," he added.

The family daily active people was 2.96 billion on average for December 2022, an increase of five per cent year-over-year.

The family monthly active people was 3.74 billion.

The Facebook daily active users were two billion on average for December 2022, an increase of four per cent year-over-year.