Meta’s Reality Labs division, focused on virtual reality, reported a significant financial loss in the first quarter of 2024. Despite intense competition with Apple in the virtual reality market, Meta’s losses have not decreased.
The latest earnings report showed that Reality Labs had an operating loss of $3.85 billion. Revenue for the division rose by 30% from the previous year to $440 million, which represents just about 1% of Meta’s total quarterly sales.
Analysts had predicted even larger losses of $4.31 billion and sales totaling $512.5 million. Since the end of 2020, Reality Labs has lost over $45 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, champions the metaverse as a digital space for work and leisure. The company was renamed from Facebook to Meta in 2021 to reflect this focus. Yet, developing this technology continues to be costly. Meta released the Quest 3 VR headset in September for $499. Shortly after, Apple launched its Vision Pro headset at $3,499, promising an advanced “spatial computing” experience.
Meta is also expanding its reach in the virtual reality sector. The company plans to work with third-party hardware companies to create new VR headsets. These headsets will use Meta’s Horizon operating system, which also powers the Quest headsets.
Zuckerberg aims to establish an open model for the next generation of computing, unlike Apple’s closed system approach.
| Quarterly losses for Meta’s Reality Labs | |
|---|---|
| 2020 Q4 | −$2.1B |
| 2021 Q1 | −$1.83B |
| 2021 Q2 | −$2.43B |
| 2021 Q3 | −$2.63B |
| 2021 Q4 | −$3.3B |
| 2022 Q1 | −$2.96B |
| 2022 Q2 | −$2.81B |
| 2022 Q3 | −$3.67B |
| 2022 Q4 | −$4.28B |
| 2023 Q1 | −$3.99B |
| 2023 Q2 | −$3.74B |
| 2023 Q3 | −$3.74B |
| 2023 Q4 | −$4.65B |
| 2024 Q1 | −$3.85B |
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