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 is one of the world's most valuable companies and among the ten largest publicly traded corporations in the United States. It is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Google's parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.
In addition to Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, 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 smart glasses. Despite endeavors into hardware, the company still relies on advertising for a vast majority of its revenue, which in 2022 made up 97.5 percent of its revenue.On October 28, 2021, the parent company of Facebook changed its name from Facebook, Inc., to Meta Platforms, Inc., to "reflect its focus on building the metaverse". According to Meta, the term "metaverse" refers to the integrated environment that links all of the company's products and services.