Metaverse: Facebook has grown into a dominant force in social media, bringing in billions for its founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Instead of dying out, the social media platform adapted to the times and found strategies to appeal to users of all ages.
The world is at the pinnacle of technology right now, and the digital world is still growing.
For the past few years, the metaverse has been a prevalent topic among technology companies, and Meta (Facebook’s parent company) has been attempting to enter it.
However, Zuckerberg is losing billions as a result of these efforts.
The news
In trading after hours on Wednesday, Meta shares rose by more than 19%.
The encouraging figures followed an optimistic quarterly earnings report that performed better than anticipated.
The report was insufficient, however, since Meta was unable to turn around its struggling metaverse division.
Reality Labs, the company’s metaverse-focused unit, sustained a startling $4.28 billion loss in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, according to a statement from Meta.
The department, which was already having trouble, experienced a new low with the announcement because it had been hailed as the future of the company.
The astounding $13.72 billion in losses for the metaverse division in 2022 followed the statement on Wednesday.
The department barely made $727 million in revenue in 2022’s closing months.
The figures were 17% lower than the revenue reported at the same time last year.
The division
The Meta business and research division focused on the metaverse is called Reality Labs.
It creates hardware and software for virtual and augmented reality, having created VR headsets like Quest and the online community Horizon Worlds.
Some positivity
Although Meta had poor performance, leaders had an unexpectedly positive attitude.
They were upbeat on the quarterly results call on Wednesday because the firm exceeded expectations for overall revenue, daily active users, monthly active users, and average revenue per user.
The business exceeded the sales target of $31.53 billion, bringing in $32.1 billion across all departments and apps, based on a highlight in the call.
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The layoffs
On the earnings call held on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to the approaching fiscal year as one of efficiency.
His decision to fire 11,000 workers three months ago served as the catalyst.
Zuckerberg said that Meta will continue to be disorderly despite the reduction in staff.
“We’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing,” said the Meta CEO.
Continued investment
Despite the fact that the metaverse development team cost the business billions of dollars, Mark Zuckerberg made it clear on Wednesday that Reality Labs wouldn’t be laid off.
He implied that there may be greater investment by saying that the department was still worthwhile despite the losses.
“Our priorities haven’t changed,” said Zuckerberg.
“The two major technological waves driving our roadmap are AI today, and, over the longer term, the metaverse.”
The Quest 3 is the latest VR headset, according to the Meta CEO, who also expressed excitement about it.
Later this year, the headgear is scheduled to hit the market.
“I expect [Quest 3] will establish this technology as the baseline for all headsets going forward,” said Zuckerberg. “And eventually for AR headsets as well.”
The headgear is expected to boost income for the metaverse business and spread awareness of the Horizon Worlds virtual reality ecosystem, according to Meta and Zuckerberg.
When it was launched, Horizon World was hailed as the future of interactive commerce, social engagement, and entertainment.
October problems
Due to lingering issues, Mark Zuckerberg put Horizon Worlds under quality lockdown in the latter part of last year.
The CEO apologized after the graphics were widely criticized after its original release.
Despite being told to utilize it at work and at home, Meta workers at the time seldom ever used the metaverse platform.
They later went through a quality lockdown to fix problems with Horizon World’s look and feel.
Reality Laboratories’ operational labs are expected to rise dramatically annually in 2023, according to assumptions made by Meta last year.
“Beyond 2023, we expect to pace Reality Labs investments such that we can achieve our goal of growing overall company operating income in the long run,” they added at the time.
Image source: Metaverse Post
