Tesla has been confronted by intensifying EV competition in leading markets, including China and the United States, where General Motors and Ford have introduced more models.
Another factor has been lower-than-expected volumes from the Cybertruck, Musk’s futuristic auto giant which has won cheers from Tesla fans and jeers from critics.
But Tesla expects growth in 2025.
“With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025,” Tesla said. “The rate of growth will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment.”
The company also confirmed plans to unveil new, more affordable vehicles in 2025 and described itself as on track regarding the launch this year of a new robotaxi venture in parts of the United States.
Meta posts big profit
Social media giant Meta reported surging profits and revenue for 2024, announcing ambitious plans to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure in the year ahead.
The bullish projection about the company’s AI future sent shares in the company spiking by as much as 5% in after-hours trading, though this later steadied to 2%.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he believed that Meta’s AI powers would make it a world leader on the technology, even if he warned delivering on the hefty investments needed would “take time”.
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp saw its net income soar 59% to US$62.36b for the full year, while fourth-quarter profits jumped 49% to US$20.84b.
Revenue reached US$164.5b, up 22% from 2023, boosted by stronger advertising performance as ad prices rose 10% and impressions increased 11% across its platforms.
The company’s user base continued to grow, reaching 3.35 billion daily active users across its platforms in December 2024, a 5% increase year-over-year.
Looking ahead, Meta plans massive infrastructure investments, with expected capital expenditures of US$60-65b for 2025, primarily supporting AI initiatives. Total expenses are projected to reach US$114-119b.
“In AI, I expect this is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalised AI assistant reaches more than one billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading assistant,” Zuckerberg said.
But he warned the investments would “be expensive for us to serve all of these people, because we are serving a lot of people”.
The company projects first-quarter 2025 revenue between US$39.5-41.8b, representing growth of 8-15% year-over-year.
Microsoft’s profit rises, cloud business misses mark
Microsoft reported profits of US$24.1b in the recently ended quarter, but shares slid on worries over its vital cloud computing business.
Microsoft revenue grew to US$69.6b and the amount of money taken in by its “intelligence cloud” unit climbed to US$25.5b, but the market had expected more.
Shares slipped slightly in after-market trades.
“Microsoft had a fine quarter, but ‘fine’ isn’t what investors want from an AI juggernaut spending like it’s building the Death Star,” Emarketer principal analyst Jeremy Goldman said, referring to a planet-sized space station from the Star Wars films.
“The cloud is still a growth engine, but AI competition – especially from unexpected players like DeepSeek – is real.”
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella spotlighted the tech titan’s artificial intelligence investments, saying the company is “innovating across our tech stack” to unlock the ability for customers to make money from the technology.
Nadella said Microsoft’s AI business is on pace to bring in more than US$13b annually, in a near-tripling of the rate a year earlier.
– Agence France-Press
