Meta is throwing $1 billion a month into the Zucerkerbg metaverse.
Reality Labs is burning through over $1 billion a month to turn the metaverse into reality. How long before shareholders lose patience?
Mark Zuckerberg‘s dream of a future in the metaverse is costing investors a huge amount of money. Reckless figures, which, in fact, had already alarmed more than a few major Meta shareholders.
At its fourth-quarter financial performance conference, Meta unveiled the costs of Reality Labs, the company’s virtual reality products and services division. Not only do viewers like the Meta Quest, but also the ambitious project of turning Mark Zuckerberg’s vision into reality. In short, to build the elusive metaverse. Moral? Reality Labs ended Q4 2022 with an operating loss of $4.28 billion. Total losses for 2022 amount to $13.72 billion. More than 1 billion dollars a month up in smoke, for a bet that will bear fruit only in several years and which, to be honest, could prove to be a huge hole in the water.
The first year of Meta (which was previously called Facebook and presented itself as a social-media company) did not go very well, therefore. Reality Labs reported revenue of $727 million in the fourth quarter and $2.16 billion in revenue for the full year 2022. These numbers are slightly down on the 2021 performance and mainly due to the collapse in sales of the virtual reality headsets, of which Meta has the largest market share.
