Meta’s metaverse-focused unit posts a $3.7 billion loss

Operating loss of Meta’s metaverse-focused Reality Labs division for the April–June 2023 period amounted to $3.74 billion.

Revenue of the business unit fell from $452 million to $276 million. CFO Susan Li explained the drop in the second figure as due to low Quest 2 headset sales.

Reality Labs’ total loss for 2022 amounted to $13.7 billion (in 2021 — $10.2 billion); for the first half of 2023 — $7.73 billion.

The company warned that the negative trend would persist through the year. The reasons are ongoing investments in product development in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and scaling the ecosystem.

Commenting on the results, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that the next major milestone for Reality Labs will be the launch of Quest 3. He said the device would be the first mass-market device that will allow millions to become acquainted with the technology.

The company also improved its avatars, which “will be the link between mobile apps and AR/VR.”

The device presentation and development details for Meta’s Reality Labs unit will be unveiled at the Connect conference on September 27.

“Our investments in AI continue. We also remain fully committed to developing the metaverse project. Meta has been pursuing these priorities for many years. In many ways these two areas intersect and complement each other. The two waves of technology that we have embraced are AI in the near term and the metaverse in the long term,” — said Zuckerberg.

For the period, the corporation reported net income of $7.79 billion.

Meta shares rose on the results, up 7.9% in after-hours trading. Since the start of the year, the stock has advanced 148.1%.

Earlier, American comedian-actor Sarah Silverman accused Meta Platforms and OpenAI of copyright infringement.

Previously, X Corp (Twitter’s successor) threatened to sue Meta Platforms over the Threads microblogging service.