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Meta has ambitious plans to develop its metaverse, and the company is still spending billions of dollars every quarter.
Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which provides augmented reality and virtual reality technology, reported an operating loss of $4.48 billion, according to the company’s second-quarter earnings report released Wednesday. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expected a loss of $4.55 billion.
The Reality Labs unit has accumulated losses of about $50 billion since the end of 2020, highlighting Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s massive investments in hardware and software to support what he calls the next era of personal computing.
Reality Labs, which generates revenue primarily from its Quest line of virtual reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, reported $353 million, up 28% from $276 million a year earlier. Analysts expected the division to report sales of $371 million.
In September, Meta launched its Quest 3 virtual reality headset, starting at $499. A few months later, Apple launched its Vision Pro VR and AR headset, starting at $3,500. In June, CNBC reported that Apple began selling the Vision Pro headset in China, with retail prices starting at 29,999 RMB ($4,128).
As the virtual reality market is still nascent, Meta has been heavily promoting smart glasses it developed with Ray-Ban, and Zuckerberg noted that advances in artificial intelligence and related large language models are improving the capabilities of smart glasses.
In early July, Francesco Milleri, CEO of Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica, told analysts that Meta plans to become a shareholder in the European eyewear maker, expanding a partnership between the two companies that has existed since 2020.
Meta’s second-generation smart glasses went on sale in October, with a starting price of $299. Zuckerberg said in an earnings call with analysts in April that “there could be a huge market for stylish, screenless AI glasses.”
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