Business news in brief

By The Associated Press

Meta more than doubles Q1 profit

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta says its first-quarter profit more than doubled, boosted by higher advertising revenue and a 6% increase on the average price of ads on its platforms. But its shares dropped sharply in after-hours trading following lukewarm revenue guidance.

Meta Platforms Inc. earned $12.37 billion, or $4.71 per share, in the January-March period. That’s up from $5.71 billion, or $2.20 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 27% to $36.46 billion from $28.65 billion.

According to FactSet, analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $4.32 per share on revenue of $36.14 billion.

Ford’s 1Q net income falls 24%

DETROIT | Ford Motor Co.’s first-quarter net income fell 24% from a year ago as the company’s combustion engine vehicle unit saw revenue and sales decline. The Dearborn, Michigan, automaker said it made $1.33 billion from January through March, compared with $1.76 billion a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, Ford made 49 cents per share, enough to beat analyst estimates of 43 cents, according to FactSet. Revenue for the quarter was up 3.2% to $42.78 billion, but that fell short of Wall Street estimates of $42.93 billion.

Boeing’s financial woes continue

Boeing is reporting a $355 million loss for the first quarter. But the CEO said the results announced on Wednesday aren’t the most important issue for the company right now. That’s fixing its manufacturing problems, which have been in the spotlight since a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines jetliner in January.

Separately, government officials in Washington met with the families of people killed when a Boeing 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia in 2019. The families want the Justice Department to revive a criminal charge against the company.

Boeing reached a settlement in 2021 that let it avoid prosecution on a charge of defrauding regulators who approved the Max.

—From AP reports