Meta Platforms is the parent of Facebook and rebranded itself from Facebook, Inc. in 2021.
Facebook, Inc. announced the new name Meta Platforms in October 2021. The change signaled a strategic focus on building the metaverse, while Facebook remained the name of one of the company’s major social-networking products. Meta also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
The company’s market capitalization has been shaped by digital advertising, user growth, mobile engagement, privacy changes, and large investments in virtual and augmented reality. Its Reality Labs division develops hardware and software for those technologies, while the Family of Apps segment contains the company’s principal social platforms.
Meta is sometimes confused with Facebook because Facebook remains a product and brand. The listed corporation is Meta Platforms, whose shares trade under the symbol META. Corporate names and product names therefore do not always match in market-cap comparisons.