The latest quarterly report shows that Facebook’s parent company Meta has lost tens of billions on VR.
A decline in daily active users earlier this year is not the only problem facing Facebook parent company Meta these days. The company is bleeding money when it comes to its virtual reality business.
As you may recall, Facebook purchased Oculus years ago and recently rebranded the parent company as Meta as the Facebook brand has taken a hit due to everything from privacy concerns to their proclivity to generate social unrest as a dystopian echo chamber. Facebook has commodified anger with alarming success.
As Venture Beat notes, Meta is now breaking down its results from Reality Labs. This is the division of the company that used to belong to Oculus. Reality Labs is posting staggering losses and only modest revenue. Per the Venture Beat report:
Reality Labs generated $695 million in revenue in the first quarter ended March 31, up from $534 million a year ago. The loss in the quarter was $2.96 billion in Q1, compared with a loss of $1.83 billion a year earlier.
Although the $2.96 billion quarterly loss is eyepopping, what is even more stunning is the nearly $20 billion loss that the division has taken since 2020. Clearly, building the “metaverse” is costing Facebook’s parent company a huge chunk of change with no guarantee that it breaks out beyond a niche market.
