Meta Reality Labs, where Meta carries out augmented and virtual reality and metaverse studies, continues to lose billions of dollars despite leaving its best quarter behind. Reality Labs generated more than $1 billion in revenue in the last three months of 2023, thanks to Quest virtual reality headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses. The data in question was shared with the company’s latest financial report.
Earning more than $1 billion in revenue is an important milestone for Reality Labs. However, the unit is expected to incur serious losses for a considerable period of time. Reality Labs, which lost 4.6 billion dollars in the last three months of 2023, exceeded 16 billion dollars in losses throughout the year.
Meta’s chief financial officer, Susan Li, stated that these losses were expected and said: “We are showing significant year-over-year growth thanks to our ongoing product development efforts in the augmented reality/virtual reality space and our investments to further grow our ecosystem.”
The fourth quarter, when shopping was done before the New Year, was the period in which the Reality Labs unit performed best. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that especially smart glasses have achieved a very good sales chart. Zuckerberg stated that Ray-Ban’s umbrella company, EssilorLuxottica, plans to produce more smart glasses due to high demand. Stating that Quest 2 and Quest 3 also exhibited good sales performances, Zuckerberg called Quest 3 “the most popular mixed reality device.”
Meta platforms will no longer share the number of users
It can be said that the last quarter of 2023 was generally good for Meta. While the company’s quarterly revenue was announced as 40.1 billion dollars, the annual revenue is just under 135 billion dollars. The number of daily active users of Facebook reached 2.1 billion during this period. Finance chief Susan Li stated that the company will no longer disclose the daily and monthly active user numbers of its platforms.
Meta’s newest platform, Threads, continues to grow. Zuckerberg announced that the service’s monthly active users have reached 130 million, up from just under 100 million last fall. Zuckerberg stated that Threads is currently actively used by more people compared to the launch period.