Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that "none of the signals that <he has> seen so far suggests that <Meta> should shift the Reality Labs strategy long term."
Meta (known as Facebook), a Menlo Park-based American multinational technology company, is not planning to change its strategy on Metaverse despite significant operating losses.
According to the 2022 financial report shared on February 1st, Reality Labs, Meta’s virtual reality and augmented reality hardware and software, lost almost $14 billion in 2022.
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This year, the Metaverse-building division experienced the largest yearly losses ever. In the fourth quarter only, Reality Labs lost around $4.3 billion.
During the earnings call hosted on February 1st, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the situation but claimed there is no reason to back away from the company's Metaverse plans. In the call, Zuckerberg stated:
None of the signals that I've seen so far suggests that we should shift the Reality Labs strategy long term. We are constantly adjusting the specifics of how we adjust -- of how we execute this. So I think that we'll certainly look at that as part of the ongoing efficiency work.
Moreover, the company expects Facebook Reality Labs’ operating losses to grow “significantly” in 2023. Meta’s Chief Financial Officer, Susan Li, noted:
We still expect our full-year Reality Labs losses to increase in 2023, and we're gonna continue to invest meaningfully in this area given the significant long-term opportunities that we see.
It is worth noting that recently, Meta’s investors asked the company to consider reducing its spending on Metaverse as the user numbers aren’t growing as expected.
It is unclear whether Meta took into consideration investor suggestions. Regardless, during the earnings call, Zuckerberg claimed that, in the next few years, the Reality Labs ecosystem should grow significantly.
Moreover, the CEO unveiled Meta’s plans to launch next-generation VR headsets, which reportedly will “establish this technology as the baseline for all headsets going forward and eventually, of course, for AR glasses as well.“
