Meta Platforms Stock Rises on AI Growth and Hardware Dominance

Meta Platforms shares rose 3% on July 6, 2026, reaching a high of $603.58. Investor optimism followed reports that the Threads app reached 500 million users and a 4% year-over-year increase in daily active users across its family of apps, totaling 3.56 billion.

The company is leveraging Reality Labs to dominate the AI hardware market, specifically with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. This segment currently controls 85% of the industry, though a new Chinese unicorn firm backed by Tencent and Meituan has emerged as a competitor.

Strategic shifts include the potential launch of a cloud-computing business and heavy AI spending. To protect intellectual property, Meta restricted its engineers from using external AI tools like OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude.

Despite the financial growth, the company faces regulatory pressure. The Government of India has demanded the removal of child abuse-related content and advertisements hosted on Instagram.