TECH NEWS – Meta 2022’s financial report for the second quarter of 2022 shows that the company has suffered another massive loss of nearly $3 billion.

Meta’s rebranding last year from Facebook, Inc. was a bold move by the social media giant, shifting its focus to the “metaverse”. While Facebook continued to operate under the same name, the company renamed its VR headset product line Meta Quest (a.k.a. Oculus). The initiative was not without criticism from others in the industry; now, a recent financial report reveals that the company continues to have trouble with the new corporate direction.

In addition to Facebook as its most prominent social media platform, Meta boasts one of the gaming industry’s most successful virtual reality tools.

Meta Quest and Quest 2 have become popular VR headsets, with Steam integration alongside the company’s app store. However, a recent announcement from the company revealed that the price of the headsets would be increased by $100 later this year. Now the company’s second-quarter financial report shows that the company is struggling with its expansion plans.

VR division Reality Labs reported a loss of nearly $3 billion in the first quarter of 2022, with the second quarter looking to show similar results. Meta’s VR division is reported to have lost $2.8 billion in the second quarter of 2022, only slightly below its loss in the first quarter of the year. Despite the apparent losses, the second quarter still boasted 1.97 billion daily active users across its various apps, up 3% year-on-year, and more than 3 billion monthly users.

Despite early losses in 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remained optimistic about the company’s future.

Zuckerberg continues to believe in the project’s potential as a “deeper social experience”, with his vision for the platform potentially seeing trillions of dollars in revenue for the company. Despite Zuckerberg’s optimism, however, the company forecasts that Reality Labs’ revenues will decline in the third quarter, likely contributed to by the increased price of Quest 2. Zuckerberg also hinted at possible layoffs, suggesting that there are probably more employees “who shouldn’t be here”.

Source: VentureBeat