Reality Labs at Meta reported an operational loss of $3.7 billion and is still dedicated to the metaverse’s growth.
According to Meta’s most recent earnings figures, which were revealed on July 26, the company invested an astounding $7.7 billion in its virtual reality business in 2023.
The division’s revenue decreased from $452 million in the same quarter last year to $276 million this quarter. Lower sales of the Quest 2 virtual reality headset were blamed for this decline.
The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, reaffirmed their commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse vision during an earnings call. The corporation has been actively working on these goals for years, according to him, and regards them as overlapping and complimentary projects.
The decrease in revenue was attributed by Susan Li, CFO of Meta, to fewer sales of the company’s VR headset. She also disclosed that Reality Labs’ expenses increased to $4 billion in the second quarter, with a 23% increase mostly attributable to rising employee-related costs and past loss reserves.
The second quarter’s $3.7 billion deficit came after losses of $4 billion in Q1 2023 and $2.8 billion in Q2 2022. Due to continuous work on virtual reality products and additional expenditures in the metaverse, the business anticipates Reality Labs’ operating losses to last through 2023.
Despite these obstacles, Zuckerberg showed strong faith in the possibilities of the metaverse and AI. CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, stated:
“I’ve said on a number of these calls that the two technological waves that we’re riding are AI in the near term and the metaverse over the longer term.”
According to Meta, its quarterly profits were $7.79 billion, up 16% from the same period in 2017. To $32 billion, quarterly revenue climbed 11% year over year.
The stock price of Meta increased on the earnings, gaining over 7% in after-hours trading to over $320, according to Google Finance statistics. Although Meta shares have increased by approximately 140% year to date, they are still behind their record high of around $378 set in September 2021.
