Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse wing, has racked up huge losses to date
The accumulated losses of Meta’s metaverse wing – Reality Labs – reached US$68.8 billion (£55 billion) last year, according to data from Altindex.com.
Facebook first rebranded to Meta in 2019, as part of a move to establish the company as a leader in the metaverse, which was being heavily pushed at the time.
This hasn’t come to fruition as yet, and the hype cycle is certainly on the downward curve for the metaverse just now. Perhaps as a result, the annual operating losses of Reality Labs have close to quadrupled in six years.
With consumer demand for VR nowhere near the numbers envisioned when the metaverse was in its infancy, and the high costs of research and VR hardware production, the metaverse hasn’t taken off in any great way, and is costing Meta a lot of money.
The financial failure of Reality Labs is set against the ongoing success of Meta, which continues to make huge profits through advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Despite the current losses associated with Meta’s metaverse ambitions, confidence in the company’s long-term metaverse vision remains high.
But, six years after Facebook rebranded as Meta, the metaverse still doesn’t seem to have made a significant impact on the public.
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