Meta’s Reality Labs has now lost more than $21 billion since the beginning of last year

• Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, logged a $3.7 billion operating loss on $276 million in sales during the second quarter.
• In June, Meta announced a VR subscription service dubbed Meta Quest+, which costs $7.99 a month.
• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed pricing details about the Quest 3 headset just days before Apple announced its Vision Pro VR and AR headset.

Meta reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday and said that its Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed to power the metaverse, logged a $3.7 billion operating loss.

The unit recorded $276 million in second-quarter sales, down from the $339 million in revenue it brought during the first quarter. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were projecting Reality Labs to record $421 million in sales and $3.5 billion in operating losses.

Shares of Meta were up about 5% after it reported an 11% pop in revenue as advertising rebounded and the company issued an uplifting sales forecast for the third quarter. It shows that Meta is still very much an ad company with a big cost center.

Last year, Meta’s Reality Labs unit lost a total of $13.7 billion while bringing in $2.16 billion in revenue, which is driven in part by the company’s sales of Quest-branded VR headsets. Reality Labs lost $3.99 billion during the first quarter. That puts its total losses at about $21.3 billion since the beginning of last year.

Meta said in its earnings report that it expects operating losses in its Reality Labs unit “to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/26/metas-reality-labs-has-now-lost-more-than-21-billion.html