Meta Platforms owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp under its corporate umbrella.
The company changed its corporate name from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, Inc. in October 2021. The rebrand emphasized founder Mark Zuckerberg’s focus on building the metaverse, a proposed collection of immersive digital spaces accessed through technologies such as virtual and augmented reality.
Facebook remains the name of the company’s flagship social-networking service, while Instagram and WhatsApp are separate major products. Meta also develops virtual-reality hardware and software through its Reality Labs division.
The corporate name change is sometimes mistaken for a renaming of Facebook itself. Facebook kept its product name; Meta became the listed parent company. Meta’s market capitalization is influenced by digital advertising revenue, user engagement, regulatory conditions, and investor expectations for newer computing platforms.