According to PANews, Meta's latest financial report reveals that its metaverse business continues to incur substantial quarterly losses. On Wednesday, Meta announced its third-quarter earnings, indicating that the Reality Labs division, responsible for developing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, experienced an operating loss of $4.43 billion. This loss is slightly lower than the $4.68 billion anticipated by analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.
Reality Labs' revenue for the third quarter increased by 29% year-over-year to $270 million, falling short of analysts' expectations of $310.4 million. The division primarily generates revenue through the sale of Meta's Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, entered the VR market in 2014 with the $2 billion acquisition of VR startup Oculus. CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that developing VR and AR technologies will position the company as a leader in the next major personal computing platform. However, this investment has been costly for Meta, with Reality Labs' cumulative operating losses exceeding $58 billion since 2020.
