# Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) FY 2022 MD&A

Verbatim Item 7 Management's Discussion and Analysis from Meta Platforms, Inc.'s 10-K for fiscal year 2022.

SEC filing source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680123000013/meta-20221231.htm
Accession: 0001326801-23-000013
Filing date: 2023-02-02
Report date: 2022-12-31
Extracted structurally from real Item 7 body heading to real Item 7A/8 boundary.
Confidence: high

Company profile: /company/META/
All MD&A years: /company/META/mda/
Previous year: /company/META/mda/fy2021/ (FY 2021)
Next year: /company/META/mda/fy2023/ (FY 2023)

Item 7.Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

You should read the following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to our historical consolidated financial information, the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates, and beliefs. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, particularly in Part I, Item 1A, "Risk Factors." For a discussion of limitations in the measurement of certain of our community metrics, see the section entitled "Limitations of Key Metrics and Other Data" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP), we present revenue on a constant currency basis and free cash flow, which are non-GAAP financial measures. Revenue on a constant currency basis is presented in the section entitled "—Revenue—Foreign Exchange Impact on Revenue." To calculate revenue on a constant currency basis, we translated revenue for the full year 2022 using 2021 monthly exchange rates for our settlement or billing currencies other than the U.S. dollar. For a full description of our free cash flow non-GAAP measure, see the section entitled "—Liquidity and Capital Resources—Free Cash Flow."

These non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. These measures may be different from non‑GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting their usefulness for comparison purposes. Moreover, presentation of revenue on a constant currency basis is provided for year-over-year comparison purposes, and investors should be cautioned that the effect of changing foreign currency exchange rates has an actual effect on our operating results. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide investors with useful supplemental information about the financial performance of our business, enable comparison of financial results between periods where certain items may vary independent of business performance, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in operating our business.

Executive Overview of Full Year 2022 Results

Our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. In 2022, we continued to focus on our main revenue growth priorities: (i) helping marketers use our products to connect with consumers and (ii) making our ads more relevant and effective. We also continued to invest in both our family of apps and our metaverse efforts based on our company priorities.

Our financial results and key community metrics for 2022 are set forth below. Our total revenue for 2022 was $116.61 billion, a decrease of 1% compared to 2021, which reflects a $5.96 billion negative impact from the appreciation of the U.S. dollar relative to other foreign currencies. Revenue on a constant currency basis was $122.57 billion for 2022, an increase of 4% compared to 2021. Our advertising revenue was impacted by a reduction in advertising demand during 2022 compared to 2021, which we believe was primarily driven by reduced marketer spending as a result of a more challenging macroeconomic environment, as well as limitations on our ad targeting and measurement tools arising from changes to iOS and the regulatory environment. Our average price per ad decreased by 16% year-over-year in 2022, partially offset by an 18% year-over-year increase in ad impressions delivered across our Family of Apps.

Income from operations for 2022 was $28.94 billion, a decrease of $17.81 billion, or 38%, compared to 2021, mainly due to an increase in payroll and related expenses associated with a 20% increase in employee headcount particularly in engineering and other technical functions and higher operational expenses related to our data centers and technical infrastructure. Starting in the third quarter of 2022, we began a series of cost management initiatives including facilities consolidation, a layoff of approximately 11,000 employees, and a pivot in our data center strategy, which resulted in total restructuring charges of $4.61 billion in 2022. We expect we may incur significant additional restructuring charges as we continue to focus on cost efficiency measures through 2023.

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Consolidated and Segment Results

We report our financial results for our two reportable segments: Family of Apps (FoA) and Reality Labs (RL). FoA includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and other services. RL includes our augmented and virtual reality related consumer hardware, software, and content.

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[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

•Net income was $23.20 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $8.59 for the year ended December 31, 2022.

•Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $32.04 billion for the year ended December 31, 2022.

•Effective tax rate was 19.5% for the year ended December 31, 2022.

•Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $40.74 billion as of December 31, 2022.

•Long-term debt was $9.92 billion as of December 31, 2022.

•Headcount was 86,482 as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 20% year-over-year. Our reported headcount includes a substantial majority of the approximately 11,000 employees impacted by the layoff we announced in November 2022, who will no longer be reflected in our headcount by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

Restructuring

In 2022, we initiated several measures to pursue greater efficiency and to realign our business and strategic priorities. This includes a facilities consolidation strategy to sublease, early terminate, or abandon several office buildings under operating leases, a layoff of approximately 11,000 of our employees across the FoA and RL segments, and a pivot towards a next generation data center design, including cancellation of multiple data center projects.

A summary of our restructuring charges for the year ended December 31, 2022 by major activity type is as follows (in millions):

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
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[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Total restructuring charges recorded under our FoA segment were $4.10 billion and RL segment were $515 million. These charges lowered our operating margin by four percentage points and diluted earnings per share (EPS) by $1.34. The impact of severance and other personnel costs recorded in the fourth quarter of 2022 was not material after offsetting with the savings from the decreases in payroll, bonus and other benefits expenses.

See Note 3 — Restructuring in the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding restructuring charges.

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Family of Apps Metrics

•Family daily active people (DAP) was 2.96 billion on average for December 2022, an increase of 5% year-over-year.

•Family monthly active people (MAP) was 3.74 billion as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 4% year-over-year.

•Facebook daily active users (DAUs) were 2.00 billion on average for December 2022, an increase of 4% year-over-year.

•Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) were 2.96 billion as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 2% year-over-year.

•Ad impressions delivered across our Family of Apps increased by 18% year-over-year in 2022, and the average price per ad decreased by 16% year-over-year in 2022.

Developments in Advertising

Substantially all of our revenue is currently generated from advertising on Facebook and Instagram. We rely on targeting and measurement tools that incorporate data signals from user activity on websites and services that we do not control in order to deliver relevant and effective ads to our users. Our advertising revenue has been, and we expect will continue to be, adversely affected by reduced marketer spending as a result of limitations on our ad targeting and measurement tools arising from changes to the regulatory environment and third-party mobile operating systems and browsers.

In particular, legislative and regulatory developments such as the General Data Protection Regulation, ePrivacy Directive, and California Privacy Rights Act have impacted our ability to use data signals in our ad products, and we expect these and other developments such as the Digital Markets Act will have further impact in the future. As a result, we have implemented, and we will continue to implement, changes to our products and user data practices, which reduce our ability to effectively target and measure ads. In addition, mobile operating system and browser providers, such as Apple and Google, have implemented product changes and/or announced future plans to limit the ability of websites and application developers to collect and use these signals to target and measure advertising. For example, in 2021, Apple made certain changes to its products and data use policies in connection with changes to its iOS operating system that reduce our and other iOS developers' ability to target and measure advertising, which has negatively impacted, and we expect will continue to negatively impact, the size of the budgets marketers are willing to commit to us and other advertising platforms.

To mitigate these developments, we are working to evolve our advertising systems to improve the performance of our ad products. We are developing privacy enhancing technologies to deliver relevant ads and measurement capabilities while reducing the amount of personal information we process, including by relying more on anonymized or aggregated third-party data. In addition, we are developing tools that enable marketers to share their data into our systems, as well as ad products that generate more valuable signals within our apps. More broadly, we also continue to innovate our advertising tools to help marketers prepare campaigns and connect with consumers, including developing growing formats such as Reels ads and our business messaging ad products. Across all of these efforts, we are making significant investments in artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve our delivery, targeting, and measurement capabilities. We are also engaging with others across our industry to explore the possibility of new open standards for the private and secure processing of data for advertising purposes. We expect that some of these efforts will be long-term initiatives, and that the regulatory and platform developments described above will continue to adversely impact our advertising revenue for the foreseeable future.

Other Business and Macroeconomic Conditions

Other global and regional business, macroeconomic, and geopolitical conditions also have had, and we believe will continue to have, an impact on our user growth and engagement and advertising revenue. In particular, we believe advertising budgets have been pressured by factors such as inflation, rising interest rates, and related market uncertainty, which has led to reduced marketer spending. In addition, competitive products and services have reduced some users' engagement with our products and services. In response to competitive pressures, we have introduced new features such as Reels and are investing in our artificial intelligence-powered discovery engine to recommend relevant unconnected content across our products. While Reels is growing in usage, it is not currently monetized at the same rate as our feed or Stories products. We also have seen fluctuations and declines in the size of our active user base in one or more markets from time to time. For example, in connection with the war in Ukraine, access to Facebook and Instagram was restricted in Russia and the services were then prohibited by the Russian government, which adversely affected user growth and engagement in 2022. These trends adversely affected advertising revenue in 2022, and we expect will continue to affect our advertising revenue in the foreseeable future.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has also impacted our business and results of operations, with a varied impact on user growth and engagement, as well as the demand for and pricing of our ads from period to period. While we experienced a reduction in advertising demand and a related decline in pricing during the onset of the pandemic, we believe the pandemic subsequently contributed to an acceleration in the growth of online commerce, and we experienced increasing demand for advertising as a result of this trend. More recently, we believe this growth has declined, and we saw continued softening of advertising demand in 2022 as many activities that shifted online during COVID-19 related lockdowns resumed in person. We may experience similar volatility in the demand for and pricing of our advertising services as a result of the pandemic in the future.

Although we regularly evaluate a variety of sources to understand trends in our advertising revenue, we do not have perfect visibility into the factors driving advertiser spending decisions and our assessments involve complex judgments about what is driving advertising decisions across a large and diversified advertiser base across the globe. Trends impacting advertising spend are also dynamic and interrelated. As a result, it is difficult to identify with precision which advertiser spending decisions are attributable to which trends, and we are unable to quantify the exact impact that each trend had on our advertising revenue during the periods presented.

Investment Philosophy

In 2022, we continued to invest based on the following company priorities: (i) continue making progress on the major social issues facing the internet and our company, including privacy, safety, and security; (ii) build new experiences that meaningfully improve people's lives today and set the stage for even bigger improvements in the future; (iii) keep building our business by supporting the millions of businesses that rely on our services to grow and create jobs; and (iv) communicate more transparently about what we're doing and the role our services play in the world.

We anticipate that investments in our data center capacity, servers, network infrastructure, and headcount will continue to drive expense growth in 2023, which will adversely affect our operating margin and profitability. The majority of our investments are directed toward developing our family of apps. In 2022, 82% of our total costs and expenses were recognized in FoA and 18% were recognized in RL. Our FoA investments include expenses relating to headcount, data centers and technical infrastructure as part of our efforts to develop our apps and our advertising services. We are also making significant investments in our metaverse efforts, including developing virtual and augmented reality devices, software for social platforms, neural interfaces, and other foundational technologies for the metaverse. Our RL investments include expenses relating to headcount and technology development across these efforts. Many of our RL investments are directed toward long-term, cutting-edge research and development for products for the metaverse that are not on the market today and may only be fully realized in the next decade. Although it is inherently difficult to predict when and how the metaverse ecosystem will develop, we expect our RL segment to continue to operate at a loss for the foreseeable future, and our ability to support our metaverse efforts is dependent on generating sufficient profits from other areas of our business. We expect this will be a complex, evolving, and long-term initiative. We are investing now because we believe this is the next chapter of the internet and will unlock monetization opportunities for businesses, developers, and creators, including around advertising, hardware, and digital goods.

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Trends in Our Family Metrics

The numbers for our key Family metrics, our DAP, MAP, and average revenue per person (ARPP), do not include users on our other products unless they would otherwise qualify as DAP or MAP, respectively, based on their other activities on our Family products.

Trends in the number of people in our community affect our revenue and financial results by influencing the number of ads we are able to show, the value of our ads to marketers, as well as our expenses and capital expenditures. Substantially all of our daily and monthly active people (as defined below) access our Family products on mobile devices.

•Daily Active People (DAP). We define a daily active person as a registered and logged-in user of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and/or WhatsApp (collectively, our "Family" of products) who visited at least one of these Family products through a mobile device application or using a web or mobile browser on a given day. We do not require people to use a common identifier or link their accounts to use multiple products in our Family, and therefore must seek to attribute multiple user accounts within and across products to individual people. Our calculations of DAP rely upon complex techniques, algorithms, and machine learning models that seek to estimate the underlying number of unique people using one or more of these products, including by matching user accounts within an individual product and across multiple products when we believe they are attributable to a single person, and counting such group of accounts as one person. As these techniques and models require significant judgment, are developed based on internal reviews of limited samples of user accounts, and are calibrated against user survey data, there is necessarily some margin of error in our estimates. We view DAP, and DAP as a percentage of MAP, as measures of engagement across our products. For additional information, see the section entitled "Limitations of Key Metrics and Other Data" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["DAP/MAP:","79%","79%","79%","78%","79%","79%","79%","79%","79%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Note: We report the numbers of DAP and MAP as specific amounts, but these numbers are estimates of the numbers of unique people using our products and are subject to statistical variances and errors. While we expect the error margin for these estimates to vary from period to period, we estimate that such margin generally will be approximately 3% of our worldwide MAP. At our scale, it is very difficult to attribute multiple user accounts within and across products to individual people, and it is possible that the actual numbers of unique people using our products may vary significantly from our estimates, potentially beyond our estimated error margins. For additional information, see the section entitled "Limitations of Key Metrics and Other Data" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In the first quarter of 2021, we updated our Family metrics calculations to maintain calibration of our models against recent user survey data, and we estimate such update contributed an aggregate of approximately 60 million DAP to our reported worldwide DAP in March 2021. In the third quarter of 2022, we updated our Family metrics calculations to maintain calibration of our models against recent user survey data, and we estimate such update contributed an aggregate of approximately 30 million DAP to our reported worldwide DAP in September 2022.

Worldwide DAP increased 5% to 2.96 billion on average during December 2022 from 2.82 billion during December 2021.

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•Monthly Active People (MAP). We define a monthly active person as a registered and logged-in user of one or more Family products who visited at least one of these Family products through a mobile device application or using a web or mobile browser in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement. We do not require people to use a common identifier or link their accounts to use multiple products in our Family, and therefore must seek to attribute multiple user accounts within and across products to individual people. Our calculations of MAP rely upon complex techniques, algorithms, and machine learning models that seek to estimate the underlying number of unique people using one or more of these products, including by matching user accounts within an individual product and across multiple products when we believe they are attributable to a single person, and counting such group of accounts as one person. As these techniques and models require significant judgment, are developed based on internal reviews of limited samples of user accounts, and are calibrated against user survey data, there is necessarily some margin of error in our estimates. We view MAP as a measure of the size of our global active community of people using our products. For additional information, see the section entitled "Limitations of Key Metrics and Other Data" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Note: We report the numbers of DAP and MAP as specific amounts, but these numbers are estimates of the numbers of unique people using our products and are subject to statistical variances and errors. While we expect the error margin for these estimates to vary from period to period, we estimate that such margin generally will be approximately 3% of our worldwide MAP. At our scale, it is very difficult to attribute multiple user accounts within and across products to individual people, and it is possible that the actual numbers of unique people using our products may vary significantly from our estimates, potentially beyond our estimated error margins. For additional information, see the section entitled "Limitations of Key Metrics and Other Data" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In the first quarter of 2021, we updated our Family metrics calculations to maintain calibration of our models against recent user survey data, and we estimate such update contributed an aggregate of approximately 70 million MAP to our reported worldwide MAP in March 2021. In the third quarter of 2022, we updated our Family metrics calculations to maintain calibration of our models against recent user survey data, and we estimate such update contributed an aggregate of approximately 40 million MAP to our reported worldwide MAP in September 2022.

As of December 31, 2022, we had 3.74 billion MAP, an increase of 4% from 3.59 billion as of December 31, 2021.

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•Average Revenue Per Person (ARPP). We define ARPP as our total revenue during a given quarter, divided by the average of the number of MAP at the beginning and end of the quarter. While ARPP includes all sources of revenue, the number of MAP used in this calculation only includes users of our Family products as described in the definition of MAP above. We estimate that the share of revenue from users who are not also MAP was not material.

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["ARPP:","$8.62","$7.75","$8.36","$8.18","$9.39","$7.72","$7.91","$7.53","$8.63"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Note: Non-advertising revenue includes RL revenue generated from the delivery of consumer hardware products and FoA Other revenue, which consists of net fees we receive from developers using our Payments infrastructure and revenue from various other sources.

Our annual worldwide ARPP in 2022, which represents the sum of quarterly ARPP during such period, was $31.79, a decrease of 6% from 2021.

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Trends in Our Facebook User Metrics

The numbers for our key Facebook metrics, our DAUs, MAUs, and average revenue per user (ARPU), do not include users on Instagram, WhatsApp, or our other products, unless they would otherwise qualify as DAUs or MAUs, respectively, based on their other activities on Facebook.

Trends in the number of users affect our revenue and financial results by influencing the number of ads we are able to show, the value of our ads to marketers, as well as our expenses and capital expenditures. Substantially all of our daily and monthly active users (as defined below) access Facebook on mobile devices.

•Daily Active Users (DAUs). We define a daily active user as a registered and logged-in Facebook user who visited Facebook through our website or a mobile device, or used our Messenger application (and is also a registered Facebook user), on a given day. We view DAUs, and DAUs as a percentage of MAUs, as measures of user engagement on Facebook.

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["DAU/MAU:","66%","66%","66%","66%","66%","67%","67%","67%","67%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["DAU/MAU:","76%","75%","75%","75%","74%","75%","75%","74%","75%","DAU/MAU:","74%","73%","73%","73%","72%","73%","74%","74%","75%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["DAU/MAU:","62%","62%","62%","63%","63%","64%","64%","64%","65%","DAU/MAU:","65%","65%","65%","66%","65%","66%","66%","66%","66%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Note: For purposes of reporting DAUs, MAUs, and ARPU by geographic region, Europe includes all users in Russia and Turkey and Rest of World includes all users in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

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Worldwide DAUs increased 4% to 2.00 billion on average during December 2022 from 1.93 billion during December 2021. Users in India, the Philippines, and Bangladesh represented the top three sources of growth in DAUs during December 2022, relative to the same period in 2021.

•Monthly Active Users (MAUs). We define a monthly active user as a registered and logged-in Facebook user who visited Facebook through our website or a mobile device, or used our Messenger application (and is also a registered Facebook user), in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement. MAUs are a measure of the size of our global active user community on Facebook.

As of December 31, 2022, we had 2.96 billion MAUs, an increase of 2% from December 31, 2021. Users in India, Nigeria, and Bangladesh represented the top three sources of growth in 2022, relative to the same period in 2021.

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Trends in Our Monetization by Facebook User Geography

We calculate our revenue by user geography based on our estimate of the geography in which ad impressions are delivered, virtual and digital goods are purchased, or consumer hardware products are shipped. We define ARPU as our total revenue in a given geography during a given quarter, divided by the average of the number of MAUs in the geography at the beginning and end of the quarter. While ARPU includes all sources of revenue, the number of MAUs used in this calculation only includes users of Facebook and Messenger as described in the definition of MAU above. While the share of revenue from users who are not also Facebook or Messenger MAUs has grown over time, we estimate that revenue from users who are Facebook or Messenger MAUs represents the substantial majority of our total revenue. See "Average Revenue Per Person (ARPP)" above for our estimates of trends in our monetization of our Family products. The geography of our users affects our revenue and financial results because we currently monetize users in different geographies at different average rates. Our revenue and ARPU in regions such as United States & Canada and Europe are relatively higher primarily due to the size and maturity of those online and mobile advertising markets. For example, ARPU in 2022 in the United States & Canada region was more than 11 times higher than in the Asia-Pacific region.

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["ARPU:","$10.14","","$9.27","","$10.12","","$10.00","$11.57","$9.54","$9.82","$9.41","$10.86"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
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[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["ARPU:","$4.05","$3.94","$4.16","$4.30","$4.89","$4.47","$4.54","$4.42","$4.61","ARPU:","$2.77","$2.64","$3.05","$3.14","$3.43","$3.14","$3.35","$3.21","$3.52"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Note: Non-advertising revenue includes RL revenue generated from the delivery of consumer hardware products and FoA Other revenue, which consists of net fees we receive from developers using our Payments infrastructure and revenue from various other sources.

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Our revenue by user geography in the charts above is geographically apportioned based on our estimation of the geographic location of our users when they perform a revenue-generating activity. This allocation differs from our revenue disaggregated by geography disclosure in Note 2 — Revenue in our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplemental Data" where revenue is geographically apportioned based on the addresses of our customers.

Our annual worldwide ARPU in 2022, which represents the sum of quarterly ARPU during such period, was $39.63, a decrease of 3% from 2021. For 2022, ARPU decreased by 9% in Europe and 4% in United States & Canada, and increased by 4% in Asia-Pacific and 8% in Rest of World. In addition, user growth was mostly in geographies with relatively lower ARPU, such as Asia‑Pacific and Rest of World. We expect that user growth in the future will be primarily concentrated in those regions where ARPU is relatively lower, such that worldwide ARPU may decrease at a higher rate, or increase at a slower rate, relative to ARPU in any geographic region in a particular period, or potentially decrease even if ARPU increases in each geographic region.

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Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, costs and expenses, and related disclosures. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate our estimates and assumptions based on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

An accounting policy is deemed to be critical if the nature of the estimates or assumptions is material due to the levels of subjectivity and judgment necessary to account for highly uncertain matters or the susceptibility of such matters to change, and the impact of the estimates and assumptions on our consolidated financial statements is material. We believe that the assumptions and estimates associated with gross vs. net in revenue recognition, valuation of non-marketable equity securities, income taxes, loss contingencies, and valuation of long-lived assets including goodwill, intangible assets, and property and equipment, and their associated estimated useful lives, when applicable, have the greatest potential impact on our consolidated financial statements. Therefore, we consider these to be our critical accounting policies and estimates. For further information on all of our significant accounting policies, see Note 1 — Summary of Significant Accounting Policies in the accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Gross vs. Net in Revenue Recognition

For revenue generated from arrangements that involve third parties, there is significant judgment in evaluating whether we are the principal, and report revenue on a gross basis, or the agent, and report revenue on a net basis. In this assessment, we consider if we obtain control of the specified goods or services before they are transferred to the customer, as well as other indicators such as the party primarily responsible for fulfillment, inventory risk, and discretion in establishing price. The assessment of whether we are considered the principal or the agent in a transaction could impact our revenue and cost of revenue recognized on the consolidated statements of income.

Valuation of Non-marketable Equity Securities

For our non-marketable equity securities without readily determinable fair values accounted for using the measurement alternative, determining whether a non-marketable equity security issued by the same issuer is similar to the non-marketable equity security we hold may require judgment in (a) assessment of differences in rights and obligations associated with the instruments such as voting rights, distribution rights and preferences, and conversion features, and (b) adjustments to the observable price for differences such as, but not limited to, rights and obligations, control premium, liquidity, or principal or most advantageous markets. In addition, the identification of observable transactions will depend on the timely reporting of these transactions from our investee companies, which may occur in a period subsequent to when the transactions take place. Therefore, our fair value adjustment for these observable transactions may occur in a period subsequent to when the transaction actually occurred. For non-marketable equity securities, we perform a qualitative assessment at each reporting date to determine whether there are triggering events for impairment. The qualitative assessment considers factors such as, but not limited to, the investee's financial condition and business outlook; industry and sector performance; regulatory, economic or technological environment; operational and financing cash flows; and other relevant events and factors affecting the investee. When indicators of impairment exist, we estimate the fair value of our non-marketable equity securities using the market approach and/or the income approach and recognize impairment loss in the consolidated statements of income if the estimated fair value is less than the carrying value. Estimating fair value requires judgment and use of estimates such as discount rates, forecast cash flows, holding period, and market data of comparable companies, among others.

Income Taxes

We are subject to income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our provision for income taxes and income tax assets and liabilities, including evaluating uncertainties in the application of accounting principles and complex tax laws.

We recognize tax benefits from uncertain tax positions only if we believe that it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on examination by the taxing authorities based on the technical merits of the position. These uncertain tax positions include our estimates for transfer pricing that have been developed based upon analyses of appropriate

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arms-length prices. Similarly, our estimates related to uncertain tax positions concerning research and development tax credits are based on an assessment of whether our available documentation corroborating the nature of our activities supporting the tax credits will be sufficient. Although we believe that we have adequately reserved for our uncertain tax positions (including net interest and penalties), we can provide no assurance that the final tax outcome of these matters will not be materially different. We make adjustments to these reserves in accordance with the income tax accounting guidance when facts and circumstances change, such as the closing of a tax audit or the refinement of an estimate. To the extent that the final tax outcome of these matters is different from the amounts recorded, such differences will affect the provision for income taxes in the period in which such determination is made, and could have a material impact on our financial condition and operating results.

Loss Contingencies

We are involved in legal proceedings, claims, and regulatory, tax or government inquiries and investigations that arise in the ordinary course of business. Certain of these matters include speculative claims for substantial or indeterminate amounts of damages. Additionally, we are required to comply with various legal and regulatory obligations around the world, and we regularly become subject to new laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate. The requirements for complying with these obligations may be uncertain and subject to interpretation and enforcement by regulatory and other authorities, and any failure to comply with such obligations could eventually lead to asserted legal or regulatory action. With respect to these matters, asserted and unasserted, we evaluate the associated developments on a regular basis and accrue a liability when we believe that it is both probable that a loss has been incurred and the amount can be reasonably estimated. If we determine there is a reasonable possibility that we may incur a loss and the loss or range of loss can be reasonably estimated, we disclose the possible loss in the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements to the extent material.

We review the developments in our contingencies that could affect the amount of the provisions that have been previously recorded, and the matters and related reasonably possible losses disclosed. We make adjustments to our provisions and changes to our disclosures accordingly to reflect the merits of our defenses and the impact of negotiations, settlements, regulatory proceedings, rulings, advice of legal counsel, and updated information. Significant judgment is required to determine the probability of loss and the estimated amount of loss, including when and if the probability and estimate has changed for asserted and unasserted matters. Certain factors, in particular, have resulted in significant changes to these estimates and judgments in prior quarters based on updated information available. For example, in certain jurisdictions where we operate, fines and penalties may be the result of new laws and preliminary interpretations regarding the basis of assessing damages, which may make it difficult to estimate what such fines and penalties would amount to if successfully asserted against us. In addition, certain government inquiries and investigations, such as matters before our lead European Union privacy regulator, the IDPC, are subject to review by other regulatory bodies before decisions are finalized, which can lead to significant changes in the outcome of an inquiry. As a result of these and other factors, we reasonably expect that our estimates and judgments with respect to our contingencies may continue to be revised in future quarters.

The ultimate outcome of these matters, such as whether the likelihood of loss is remote, reasonably possible, or probable or if and when the reasonably possible range of loss is estimable, is inherently uncertain. Therefore, if one or more of these matters were resolved against us for amounts in excess of management's estimates of losses, our results of operations and financial condition, including in a particular reporting period in which any such outcome becomes probable and estimable, could be materially adversely affected. See Note 13 — Commitments and Contingencies and Note 16 — Income Taxes of the accompanying notes to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" and Part I, Item 3, "Legal Proceedings" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding these contingencies.

Valuation of Long-lived Assets including Goodwill, Intangible Assets, and Property and Equipment and Estimated Useful Lives

We allocate the fair value of purchase consideration to the tangible assets acquired, liabilities assumed, and intangible assets acquired based on their estimated fair values. The excess of the fair value of purchase consideration over the fair values of these identifiable assets and liabilities is recorded as goodwill to reporting units based on the expected benefit from the business combination. Such valuations require management to make significant estimates and assumptions, especially with respect to intangible assets. Significant estimates in valuing certain intangible assets include, but are not limited to, estimated replacement costs and future expected cash flows from acquired users, acquired technology, acquired patents, and trade

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names from a market participant perspective, useful lives, and discount rates. Management's estimates of fair value are based upon assumptions believed to be reasonable, but which are inherently uncertain and unpredictable and, as a result, actual results may differ from estimates. Allocation of purchase consideration to identifiable assets and liabilities affects our amortization expense, as acquired finite-lived intangible assets are amortized over the useful life, whereas any indefinite-lived intangible assets, including goodwill, are not amortized. During the measurement period, which is not to exceed one year from the acquisition date, we may record adjustments to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed, with the corresponding offset to goodwill. Upon the conclusion of the measurement period, any subsequent adjustments are recorded to earnings.

Goodwill is tested for impairment at the reporting unit level annually or more frequently if events or changes in circumstances would more likely than not reduce the fair value of a reporting unit below its carrying value. We have two reporting units subject to goodwill impairment testing. As of December 31, 2022, no impairment of goodwill has been identified.

Long-lived assets, including property and equipment and finite-lived intangible assets are reviewed for possible impairment whenever events or circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. The evaluation is performed at the lowest level for which identifiable cash flows are largely independent of the cash flows of other assets and liabilities. Recoverability of these assets is measured by a comparison of the carrying amounts to the future undiscounted cash flows the assets are expected to generate from the use and eventual disposition. If such review indicates that the carrying amount of property and equipment and intangible assets is not recoverable, the carrying amount of such assets is reduced to fair value.

The useful lives of our long-lived assets including property and equipment and finite-lived intangible assets are determined by management when those assets are initially recognized and are routinely reviewed for the remaining estimated useful lives. The current estimate of useful lives represents our best estimate based on current facts and circumstances, but may differ from the actual useful lives due to changes in future circumstances such as changes to our business operations, changes in the planned use of assets, and technological advancements. When we change the estimated useful life assumption for any asset, the remaining carrying amount of the asset is accounted for prospectively and depreciated or amortized over the revised remaining useful life.

In connection with our periodic reviews of the estimated useful lives of property and equipment, we extended the estimated average useful lives of our servers and network assets category effective the second and the fourth quarters of 2022. The financial impact of the changes in estimates was a reduction in depreciation expense of $860 million and an increase in net income of $693 million, or $0.26 per diluted share for the year ended December 31, 2022. The impact from the changes in our estimates was calculated based on the servers and network assets existing as of the effective date of the change and applying the revised useful lives prospectively.

See Note 1 — Summary of Significant Accounting Policies in the accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, for additional information regarding the changes in the estimated useful lives of our servers and network assets.

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Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

Family of Apps (FoA)

Advertising. We generate substantially all of our revenue from advertising. Our advertising revenue is generated by displaying ad products on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and third-party mobile applications. Marketers pay for ad products either directly or through their relationships with advertising agencies or resellers, based on the number of impressions delivered or the number of actions, such as clicks, taken by users.

We recognize revenue from the display of impression-based ads in the contracted period in which the impressions are delivered. Impressions are considered delivered when an ad is displayed to a user. We recognize revenue from the delivery of action-based ads in the period in which a user takes the action the marketer contracted for. The number of ads we show is subject to methodological changes as we continue to evolve our ads business and the structure of our ads products. In particular, the number of ads we show may vary by product (for example, our video and Reels products are not currently monetized at the same rate as our feed or Stories products), and from time to time we increase or decrease the number or frequency of ads we show as part of our product and monetization strategies. We calculate average price per ad as total advertising revenue divided by the number of ads delivered, representing the average price paid per ad by a marketer regardless of their desired objective such as impression or action. For advertising revenue arrangements where we are not the principal, we recognize revenue on a net basis.

Other revenue. Other revenue consists of net fees we receive from developers using our Payments infrastructure and revenue from WhatsApp Business Platform and various other sources.

Reality Labs (RL)

RL revenue is generated from the delivery of consumer hardware products, such as Meta Quest, wearables, and related software and content.

Cost of Revenue and Operating Expenses

Cost of revenue. Our cost of revenue consists mostly of expenses associated with the delivery and distribution of our products. These include expenses related to the operation of our data centers and technical infrastructure, such as depreciation expense from servers, network infrastructure and buildings, as well as payroll and related expenses which include share-based compensation for employees on our operations teams, and energy and bandwidth costs. Cost of revenue also includes costs associated with partner arrangements, including traffic acquisition costs and credit card and other fees related to processing customer transactions, and content costs. Additionally, cost of revenue includes RL inventory costs, which consist of cost of products sold and estimated losses on non-cancelable contractual commitments.

Research and development. Research and development expenses consist primarily of payroll and related expenses which include share-based compensation, facilities-related costs for employees on our engineering and technical teams who are responsible for developing new products as well as improving existing products, RL technology development costs, and professional services.

Marketing and sales. Marketing and sales expenses consist mostly of marketing and promotional expenses as well as payroll and related expenses which include share-based compensation for our employees engaged in sales, sales support, marketing, business development, and customer service functions. Our marketing and sales expenses also include professional services such as content reviewers to support our community and product operations.

General and administrative. General and administrative expenses consist primarily of payroll and related expenses which include share-based compensation for certain of our executives as well as our legal, finance, human resources, corporate communications and policy, and other administrative employees; legal-related costs, which include estimated fines, settlements, or other losses in connection with legal and related matters, as well as other legal fees; professional services, and other taxes, such as digital services taxes, other tax levies.

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Results of Operations

In this section, we discuss the results of our operations for the year ended December 31, 2022 compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. For a discussion of the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020, please refer to Part II, Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021.

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of income data (in millions):

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020"],["Revenue","$","116,609","","","$","117,929","","","$","85,965"],["Costs and expenses:"],["Cost of revenue","25,249","","","22,649","","","16,692"],["Research and development","35,338","","","24,655","","","18,447"],["Marketing and sales","15,262","","","14,043","","","11,591"],["General and administrative","11,816","","","9,829","","","6,564"],["Total costs and expenses","87,665","","","71,176","","","53,294"],["Income from operations","28,944","","","46,753","","","32,671"],["Interest and other income (expense), net","(125)","","","531","","","509"],["Income before provision for income taxes","28,819","","","47,284","","","33,180"],["Provision for income taxes","5,619","","","7,914","","","4,034"],["Net income","$","23,200","","","$","39,370","","","$","29,146"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of income data (as a percentage of revenue)(1):

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020"],["Revenue","100","%","","100","%","","100","%"],["Costs and expenses:"],["Cost of revenue","22","","","19","","","19"],["Research and development","30","","","21","","","21"],["Marketing and sales","13","","","12","","","13"],["General and administrative","10","","","8","","","8"],["Total costs and expenses","75","","","60","","","62"],["Income from operations","25","","","40","","","38"],["Interest and other income (expense), net","\u2014","","","\u2014","","","1"],["Income before provision for income taxes","25","","","40","","","39"],["Provision for income taxes","5","","","7","","","5"],["Net income","20","%","","33","%","","34","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

_________________________

(1)Percentages have been rounded for presentation purposes and may differ from unrounded results.

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Revenue

The following table sets forth our revenue by source and by segment. For comparative purposes, amounts for the year ended December 31, 2020 have been recast:

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Advertising","$","113,642","","","$","114,934","","","$","84,169","","","(1)","%","","37","%"],["Other revenue","808","","","721","","","657","","","12","%","","10","%"],["Family of Apps","114,450","","","115,655","","","84,826","","","(1)","%","","36","%"],["Reality Labs","2,159","","","2,274","","","1,139","","","(5)","%","","100","%"],["Total revenue","$","116,609","","","$","117,929","","","$","85,965","","","(1)","%","","37","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Family of Apps

FoA revenue in 2022 decreased $1.21 billion, or 1%, compared to 2021. The decrease was mostly driven by advertising revenue.

Advertising

Advertising revenue in 2022 decreased $1.29 billion, or 1%, compared to 2021 due to a decrease in the average price per ad, partially offset by an increase in the number of ads delivered. In 2022, the average price per ad decreased by 16%, as compared with an increase of 24% in 2021. The decrease in average price per ad was driven by an increase in the number of ads delivered, especially in geographies and in products such as video and Reels that monetize at lower rates, and an unfavorable foreign exchange impact. In addition, the decrease in average price per ad was impacted by a reduction in advertising demand, which we believe was primarily driven by reduced marketer spending as a result of a more challenging macroeconomic environment and limitations on our ad targeting and measurement tools arising from changes to iOS and the regulatory environment, as well as, to a lesser extent, the other factors discussed in the section entitled "—Executive Overview of Full Year 2022 Results." In 2022, the number of ads delivered increased by 18%, as compared with a 10% increase in 2021. Ads impressions grew in all regions during 2022, mostly driven by an increase in ads delivered in Asia-Pacific and Rest of World. The increase in the ads delivered during 2022 was driven by increases in the number and frequency of ads displayed across our products and an increase in users. We anticipate that future advertising revenue will be driven by a combination of price and the number of ads delivered.

Reality Labs

RL revenue in 2022 decreased $115 million, or 5%, compared to 2021. The decrease in RL revenue was driven by a decrease in the volume of Meta Quest sales.

Revenue Seasonality and Customer Concentration

Revenue is traditionally seasonally strong in the fourth quarter of each year due in part to seasonal holiday demand. We believe that this seasonality in both advertising revenue and RL consumer hardware sales affects our quarterly results, which generally reflect significant growth in revenue between the third and fourth quarters and a decline between the fourth and subsequent first quarters. For instance, our total revenue increased 16%, 16%, and 31% between the third and fourth quarters of 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively, while total revenue for the first quarters of 2022, 2021, and 2020 declined 17%, 7%, and 16% compared to the fourth quarters of 2021, 2020, and 2019, respectively.

No customer represented 10% or more of total revenue during the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020.

Foreign Exchange Impact on Revenue

The general strengthening of the U.S. dollar relative to certain foreign currencies in the full year 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 had an unfavorable impact on revenue. If we had translated revenue for the full year 2022 using the prior

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year's monthly exchange rates for our settlement or billing currencies other than the U.S. dollar, our total revenue and advertising revenue would have been $122.57 billion and $119.54 billion, respectively. Using these constant rates, total revenue and advertising revenue would have been $5.96 billion and $5.90 billion higher than actual total revenue and advertising revenue, respectively, for the full year 2022. Using the same constant rates, full year 2022 total revenue and advertising revenue would have been $4.64 billion and $4.60 billion, respectively, higher than actual total revenue and advertising revenue for the full year 2021.

Cost of revenue

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Cost of revenue","$","25,249","","","$","22,649","","","$","16,692","","","11","%","","36","%"],["Percentage of revenue","22","%","","19","%","","19","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Cost of revenue in 2022 increased $2.60 billion, or 11%, compared to 2021. The increase was mainly due to an increase in operational expenses related to our data centers and technical infrastructure, adjusted for a decrease in the depreciation growth rate due to extensions in the useful lives of servers and network assets. In addition, we recorded $1.34 billion of abandonment charges related to data center assets. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in RL inventory cost including lower losses on purchase commitments.

See Note 1 — Summary of Significant Accounting Policies and Note 3 — Restructuring in the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding changes in the estimated useful life of our servers and network assets as well as the abandonment charges related to data center assets, respectively.

Research and development

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Research and development","$","35,338","","","$","24,655","","","$","18,447","","","43","%","","34","%"],["Percentage of revenue","30","%","","21","%","","21","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Research and development expenses in 2022 increased $10.68 billion, or 43%, compared to 2021. The increase was mainly due to higher payroll and related expenses and $1.31 billion impairment charges to leases and leasehold improvements as part of our restructuring efforts. Our payroll and related expenses increased as a result of a 26% increase in employee headcount from December 31, 2021 to December 31, 2022 in engineering and other technical functions supporting our continued investment in our family of products and RL.

Marketing and sales

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Marketing and sales","$","15,262","","","$","14,043","","","$","11,591","","","9","%","","21","%"],["Percentage of revenue","13","%","","12","%","","13","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Marketing and sales expenses in 2022 increased $1.22 billion, or 9%, compared to 2021. The increase was mostly due to increases in payroll and related expenses and $404 million impairment charges to leases and leasehold improvements as part of our restructuring efforts.

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General and administrative

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["General and administrative","$","11,816","","","$","9,829","","","$","6,564","","","20","%","","50","%"],["Percentage of revenue","10","%","","8","%","","8","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

General and administrative expenses in 2022 increased $1.99 billion, or 20%, compared to 2021. The increase was primarily due to increases in payroll and related expenses and $426 million impairment charges to leases and leasehold improvements as part of our restructuring efforts. Our payroll and related expenses increased as a result of a 20% increase in employee headcount from December 31, 2021 to December 31, 2022 in our general and administrative functions.

See Note 3 — Restructuring in the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding impairment charges to leases and leasehold improvements.

Segment profitability

The following table sets forth income (loss) from operations by segment. For comparative purposes, amounts for the year ended December 31, 2020 have been recast:

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Family of Apps","$","42,661","","","$","56,946","","","$","39,294","","","(25)","%","","45","%"],["Reality Labs","(13,717)","","","(10,193)","","","(6,623)","","","(35)","%","","(54)","%"],["Total income from operations","$","28,944","","","$","46,753","","","$","32,671","","","(38)","%","","43","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Family of Apps

FoA income from operations in 2022 decreased $14.29 billion, or 25%, compared to 2021. The decrease was due to an increase in FoA total costs and expenses, primarily due to an increase in payroll and related expenses as a result of higher employee headcount, additional charges recorded related to our restructuring efforts and an increase in costs related to our data centers and technical infrastructure.

See Note 3 — Restructuring in the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information.

Reality Labs

RL loss from operations in 2022 increased $3.52 billion, or 35%, compared to 2021. The increase in loss from operations was mainly driven by increases in payroll and related expenses and research and development expenses, partially offset by a decrease in RL inventory cost including lower losses on purchase commitments.

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Interest and other income (expense), net

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Interest income, net","$","276","","","$","461","","","$","672","","","(40)","%","","(31)","%"],["Foreign currency exchange losses, net","(81)","","","(140)","","","(129)","","","42","%","","(9)","%"],["Other income (expense), net","(320)","","","210","","","(34)","","","(252)","%","","NM"],["Interest and other income (expense), net","$","(125)","","","$","531","","","$","509","","","(124)","%","","4","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Interest and other income (expense), net in 2022 decreased $656 million, or 124%, compared to 2021. The decrease was mostly due to a decrease in other income (expense), net related to higher unrealized losses recognized for our equity investments and an increase in interest expense recognized on long-term debt.

Provision for income taxes

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020","","2022 vs 2021 % change","","2021 vs 2020 % change"],["","(in millions, except percentages)"],["Provision for income taxes","$","5,619","","","$","7,914","","","$","4,034","","","(29)","%","","96","%"],["Effective tax rate","19.5","%","","16.7","%","","12.2","%"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Our provision for income taxes in 2022 decreased $2.29 billion, or 29%, compared to 2021, mostly due to a decrease in income from operations.

Our effective tax rate in 2022 increased compared to 2021, mainly due to an increase in tax shortfalls recognized from share-based compensation and the effect of regulations issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2022 on foreign tax credits, partially offset by an increase in tax benefits from foreign-derived intangible income.

Effective Tax Rate Items. Our effective tax rate in the future will depend upon the proportion between the following items and income before provision for income taxes: U.S. tax benefits from foreign-derived intangible income, tax effects from share-based compensation, research tax credit, tax effects of integrating intellectual property from acquisitions, settlement of tax contingency items, tax effects of changes in our business, and the effects of changes in tax law.

The accounting for share-based compensation may increase or decrease our effective tax rate based upon the difference between our share-based compensation expense and the deductions taken on our tax return, which depend upon the stock price at the time of employee award vesting. If our stock price remains constant to the January 27, 2023 price, and absent any changes to U.S. tax law, we expect our effective tax rate for the full year 2023 to be in the low twenties. This includes the effects of the mandatory capitalization and amortization of research and development expenses incurred in 2022, as required by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Tax Act). The mandatory capitalization requirement increased our 2022 cash tax liabilities materially but also decreased our effective tax rate due to increasing the foreign-derived intangible income deduction. If the mandatory capitalization requirement is deferred, our effective tax rate in 2023 could be higher when compared to current law and our cash tax liabilities could be several billion dollars lower.

Integrating intellectual property from acquisitions into our business generally involves intercompany transactions that have the impact of increasing our provision for income taxes. Consequently, our provision for income taxes and our effective tax rate may initially increase in the period of an acquisition and integration. The magnitude of this impact will depend upon the specific type, size, and taxing jurisdictions of the intellectual property as well as the relative contribution to income in subsequent periods.

On August 16, 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The key tax provisions applicable to us are a 15% corporate minimum tax on book income and a 1% excise tax on stock repurchases effective January 1, 2023. We do

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not expect these tax law changes to have a material impact on our consolidated financial position; however, we will continue to evaluate their impact as further information becomes available.

Unrecognized Tax Benefits. As of December 31, 2022, we had net uncertain tax positions of $5.49 billion which were accrued as other liabilities. These unrecognized tax benefits were predominantly accrued for uncertainties related to transfer pricing with our foreign subsidiaries, which includes licensing of intellectual property, providing services and other transactions, as well as for uncertainties regarding the utilization of our research tax credits. The ultimate settlement of the liabilities will depend upon resolution of tax audits, litigation, or events that would otherwise change the assessment of such items. Based upon the status of litigation described below and the current status of tax audits in various jurisdictions, we do not anticipate a material change to such amounts within the next 12 months.

See Note 16 — Income Taxes in the notes to consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding income tax contingencies.

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Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our principal sources of liquidity are our cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, and cash generated from operations. Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities consist mostly of cash on deposit with banks, investments in money market funds, U.S. government securities, U.S. government agency securities, and investment grade corporate debt securities. Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $40.74 billion as of December 31, 2022, a decrease of $7.26 billion from December 31, 2021. The majority of the decrease was due to $32.04 billion for capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, $27.96 billion repurchases of our Class A common stock, $3.60 billion of taxes paid related to net share settlement of employee restricted stock unit (RSU) awards, and $1.31 billion for acquisitions of businesses and intangible assets. These decreases were partially offset by $50.48 billion of cash generated from operations and $9.92 billion of net proceeds from the issuance of fixed-rate senior notes (the "Notes") in August 2022.

Cash paid for income taxes was $6.41 billion for the year ended December 31, 2022. As of December 31, 2022, our federal net operating loss carryforward was $196 million and our federal tax credit carryforward was $276 million. We anticipate the utilization of most of these net operating losses and credits within the next two years.

Our board of directors has authorized a share repurchase program of our Class A common stock, which commenced in January 2017 and does not have an expiration date. In 2022, we repurchased and subsequently retired 161 million shares of our Class A common stock for an aggregate amount of $27.93 billion. As of December 31, 2022, $10.87 billion remained available and authorized for repurchases. In January 2023, an additional $40 billion of repurchases was authorized under this program.

The following table presents our cash flows (in millions):

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020"],["Net cash provided by operating activities","$","50,475","","","$","57,683","","","$","38,747"],["Net cash used in investing activities","$","(28,970)","","","$","(7,570)","","","$","(30,059)"],["Net cash used in financing activities","$","(22,136)","","","$","(50,728)","","","$","(10,292)"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Cash Provided by Operating Activities

Cash provided by operating activities during 2022 mostly consisted of net income adjusted for certain non-cash items, such as $11.99 billion of share-based compensation expense, $8.69 billion of depreciation and amortization, and $3.56 billion of impairment for leases, leasehold improvements, and abandonment charges for data center assets related to our restructuring efforts. The decrease in cash flows from operating activities during 2022 compared to 2021 was mainly due to a decrease in net income as adjusted for the aforementioned non-cash items, partially offset by changes in working capital.

Cash Used in Investing Activities

Cash used in investing activities during 2022 mostly consisted of $31.19 billion of net purchases of property and equipment as we continued to invest in servers, data centers, and network infrastructure, partially offset by $3.53 billion proceeds from net sales and maturities of marketable debt securities. The increase in cash used in investing activities during 2022 compared to 2021 was mostly due to an increase in net purchases of property and equipment, and a decrease in proceeds from net sales and maturities of marketable debt securities.

We anticipate making capital expenditures of approximately $30 billion to $33 billion in 2023.

Cash Used in Financing Activities

Cash used in financing activities during 2022 mostly consisted of $27.96 billion for repurchases of our Class A common stock and $3.60 billion of taxes paid related to net share settlement of RSUs, partially offset by $9.92 billion proceeds from the issuance of the Notes. The decrease in cash used in financing activities during 2022 compared to 2021 was mostly due to a decrease in repurchases of our Class A common stock and proceeds from the issuance of the Notes.

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Free Cash Flow

In addition to other financial measures presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP, we monitor free cash flow (FCF) as a non-GAAP measure to manage our business, make planning decisions, evaluate our performance, and allocate resources. We define FCF as net cash provided by operating activities reduced by net purchases of property and equipment and principal payments on finance leases.

We believe that FCF is one of the key financial indicators of our business performance over the long term and provides useful information regarding how cash provided by operating activities compares to the property and equipment investments required to maintain and grow our business.

We have chosen our definition for FCF because we believe that this methodology can provide useful supplemental information to help investors better understand underlying trends in our business. We use FCF in discussions with our senior management and board of directors.

FCF has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of other GAAP financial measures, such as net cash provided by operating activities. FCF is not intended to represent our residual cash flow available for discretionary expenses. Some of the limitations of FCF are:

•FCF does not reflect our future contractual commitments; and

•other companies in our industry present similarly titled measures differently than we do, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures.

Management compensates for the inherent limitations associated with using the FCF measure through disclosure of such limitations, presentation of our financial statements in accordance with GAAP, and reconciliation of FCF to the most directly comparable GAAP measure, net cash provided by operating activities, as presented below.

The following is a reconciliation of FCF to the most comparable GAAP measure, net cash provided by operating activities (in millions):

[[GREPCENT_TABLE]]
[["","Year Ended December 31,"],["","2022","","2021","","2020"],["Net cash provided by operating activities","$","50,475","","","$","57,683","","","$","38,747"],["Purchases of property and equipment, net","(31,186)","","","(18,567)","","","(15,115)"],["Principal payments on finance leases","(850)","","","(677)","","","(604)"],["Free Cash Flow","$","18,439","","","$","38,439","","","$","23,028"]]
[[/GREPCENT_TABLE]]

Material Cash Requirements

We currently anticipate that our available funds and cash flow from operations and financing activities will be sufficient to meet our operational cash needs and fund our share repurchase program for at least the next 12 months and thereafter for the foreseeable future. We continuously evaluate our liquidity and capital resources, including our access to external capital, to ensure we can finance our future capital requirements.

Leases and Contractual Commitments

Our operating lease obligations mostly include, among others, offices, data centers, colocations, and land. Our finance lease obligations mostly include certain network infrastructure. Our restructuring efforts to sublease, early terminate or abandon several office buildings under operating leases did not materially change our operating lease obligations.

Our contractual commitments are primarily related to our investments in network infrastructure, servers, and consumer hardware products in Reality Labs.

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Long-term Debt

In August 2022, we issued an aggregate of $10.0 billion principal amount of the Notes. The Notes were issued in four series, which mature from 2027 through 2062. Short-term and long-term future interest payments obligations as of December 31, 2022 are $411 million and $7.69 billion, respectively. We intend to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include, but are not limited to, capital expenditures, repurchases of outstanding shares of our common stock, acquisitions, or investments.

Taxes

As of December 31, 2022, we had taxes payable of $1.51 billion related to a one-time transition tax payable incurred as a result of the Tax Act, of which $361 million is due within one year. As permitted by the Tax Act, we will pay the transition tax in annual interest-free installments through 2025. Our other liabilities also include $5.49 billion related to the uncertain tax positions as of December 31, 2022. Due to uncertainties in the timing of the completion of tax audits, the timing of the resolution of these positions is uncertain and we are unable to make a reasonably reliable estimate of the timing of payments.

Contingencies

We are involved in legal proceedings, claims, and regulatory, tax or government inquiries and investigations. We record a liability when we believe that it is both probable that a liability has been incurred, and that the amount can be reasonably estimated. If we determine there is a reasonable possibility that we may incur a loss and the loss or range of loss can be estimated, we disclose the possible loss in the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements to the extent material. Significant judgment is required to determine both probability and the estimated amount of loss. Such matters are inherently unpredictable and subject to significant uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control. Should any of these estimates and assumptions change or prove to be incorrect, it could have a material impact on our results of operations, financial position, and cash flows.

See Note 9 — Leases, Note 11 — Long-term Debt, Note 13 — Commitments and Contingencies, and Note 16 — Income Taxes in the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, and "Legal Proceedings" contained in Part I, Item 3 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding leases and contractual commitments, long-term debt, taxes, and contingencies.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

For information on recently issued accounting pronouncements, see Note 1 — Summary of Significant Accounting Policies in the accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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