Zuckerberg’s Metaverse lost over $13 billion in 2023

Despite mass layoffs at the social media giant, Facebook parent company Meta continues to burn money through its Reality Labs division. The team behind the company’s controversial Metaverse project, Reality Labs continues to lose billions of dollars every quarter.

In the company’s latest earnings report, Meta revealed an additional $13.7 billion loss on its mixed reality business across 2022. Despite strong sales of the Oculus Quest 2 headset, renamed Meta Quest 2, Reality Labs has failed to garner any profit.

Across the company’s fourth quarter, Meta Reality Labs generated $727 million in revenue. However, in that same quarter, the division reported a $4.28 billion operating loss.

Surprisingly, Reality Labs actually lost more money throughout 2022 than it did in 2021. 2022 losses for the division are estimated at 6 times that of 2021 despite only making up 2% of Meta’s overall revenue.

Despite this, the division’s losses are still less than projections expected. Analysts invested in Meta estimated that the division was set to lose $4.36 billion this quarter, $80 million more than they actually lost.

Investors have been upset at Meta’s continued investment in its Metaverse project. Last year, numerous investors released an open letter to the tech giant begging them to cancel its Metaverse endeavours. With falling share prices, Meta investors have even urged CEO Mark Zuckerberg to step down from his position and let someone else run the company.

Meta’s investment in Reality Labs isn’t simply limited to its virtual reality Metaverse. In fact, the division encompasses the companies entire virtual reality and augmented reality development, the latter of which is internally expected to be a massive project for the company.

While current-gen augmented reality glasses are far from ideal, Meta hopes that its take on the technology will become popular. On the other hand, many Meta employees are worried about the project, claiming that Zuckerberg’s ego rests on the success of the technology.

The public may not be interested in Zuckerberg’s Metaverse at all, but the company still refuses to give up on the technology.

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