Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta, and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services. Meta ranks among the largest American information technology companies, alongside other Big Five corporations Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. The company was ranked #31 on the Forbes Global 2000 ranking in 2023. In 2022, Meta was the company with the third-highest expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to US$35.3 billion.
Meta has also acquired Oculus (which it has integrated into Reality Labs), Mapillary, CTRL-Labs, and a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms; the company additionally endeavored into non-VR hardware, such as the discontinued Meta Portal smart displays line and presently partners with Luxottica through the Ray-Ban Stories series of smartglasses. Despite endeavors into hardware, the company relies on advertising for a vast majority of its revenue, amounting to 97.8 percent in 2023.
Parent company Facebook, Inc. rebranded as Meta Platforms, Inc. on October 28, 2021, to "reflect its focus on building the metaverse", an integrated environment linking the company's products and services.