San Francisco | Long before it was called Meta, Facebook was a Wall Street darling because of its breakneck growth and big profits. But the company had lost its luster with investors over the past 18 months thanks to a slump in ad sales and what some saw as self-inflicted wounds.

On Wednesday (Thursday AEST), the company appeared to regain some of its footing. Meta said its revenue for the second quarter jumped 11 per cent from a year earlier, to $US32 billion ($47 billion). Profits rose 16 per cent, to $US7.8 billion, fuelled in part by improvements made to Meta’s advertising technology using artificial intelligence, as well as other product tweaks.