Meta, which also owns Instagram and Whatsapp, reported $32bn in revenue for the fourth quarter, which drove a rise in its stock price in extended trading on Wednesday.
It said its investments in AI-surfaced content and Reels, a short video competitor with TikTok, were starting to pay off.
Revenue fell 4% to $32.17bn from $33.67bn. Analysts were expecting $31.55bn.
Analysts had predicted the company would see a big drop in its fourth-quarter net income compared with the previous year due to shrinking ad revenue and higher costs.
In response to its revenue drop and the inflationary market pressures, Meta laid off 11,000 workers in November. It also reshuffled its management team. Zuckerberg has hinted to employees that more layoffs and management cuts may lie ahead in 2023.
Zuckerberg said the difficulties of 2022 had forced the company to look at how it could cut costs. In the end, he said, he and other managers were surprised that certain cuts, like reducing layers of management, actually ended up making the company better.
The research analyst Brent Thill of Jefferies said the results were still gloomy.
And, in what some have criticized as an attempt to chase profits, Meta announced last week that it would allow Donald Trump to return to Facebook and Instagram soon, after banning him following the January 6 Capitol riots in 2021.
But Zuckerberg was upbeat in predicting better earnings for next year, in part due to cuts in employees and office space. He also touted forthcoming releases of a new virtual reality headset and new generative AI features that could let creators design avatars, images and videos using AI.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report
