Meta continues to lose money on virtual reality: Reality Labs quarterly loss – $4.48 billion

Meta✴’s ambitious plans to develop the metaverse continue to cost the company billions of dollars. Meta✴’s Reality Labs augmented and virtual reality division reported an operating loss of $4.48 billion in its latest second-quarter financial report. Industry analysts had forecast losses for the division at $4.55 billion.

Image source: Meta✴

Reality Labs has lost more than $50 billion in total losses since the end of 2020, CNBC reports, underscoring CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s massive investment in developing new hardware and software that he says will power the next era of personal experiences. computers.

Reality Labs’ second-quarter revenue, primarily driven by sales of its Quest family of VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta✴ smart glasses, was $353 million, up 28% from the year-earlier period ($276 million). Analysts had expected the unit to generate profits of $371 million.

In September, Meta✴ introduced the Quest 3 VR headset costing $499. A few months later, Apple released the Vision Pro, a premium mixed reality headset priced at $3,500. In June, Apple began shipping the Vision Pro to China, where its retail price starts at 29,999 yuan or $4,141.

Since the VR market is still in its infancy, Meta✴ is increasingly promoting smart glasses, which it is developing together with Ray-Ban. Mark Zuckerberg believes that recent advances in artificial intelligence and related large language models are fundamental to improving the capabilities of smart glasses.

In July, the CEO of Ray-Ban’s parent company EssilorLuxottica, Francesco Milleri, said Meta✴ plans to become a shareholder in the European eyewear maker and expand the partnership between the two companies that began in 2020.

The second generation of Meta✴ smart glasses, priced at $299, went on sale in October last year. In April of this year, Zuckerberg, in a conversation with analysts, announced the possibility of a market “for fashionable glasses with artificial intelligence that are not equipped with a digital display.”