Meta’s Reality Labs Continues to See Losses Despite Company Boasting 11 Percent YoY Spike in Revenue

Meta has recorded an eleven percent year-on-year (YoY) revenue growth for the second quarter of 2023, between the months of April and June. Despite Meta having recorded one of its best quarters since its rebranding from Facebook in 2021, the company’s metaverse sector remains lacklustre. Meta’s revenue climbed to $32 billion (roughly Rs. 2,62,377 crore) in the second quarter of 2023. Its fiscal second-quarter net income in 2023 was $7.79 billion (roughly Rs. 63,870 crore), up from $6.7 billion (roughly Rs. 54,928 crore) from the last year’s second quarter.

Meta, in its latest earnings call, did not disclose exactly how much its metaverse-related unit Reality Labs lost this quarter.

The company did however say that it’s metaverse unit is expecting to see more losses in the coming times.

“While we are not providing a quantitative outlook beyond 2023 at this point, we expect a few factors to be drivers of total expense growth in 2024 as we continue to invest in our most compelling opportunities, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the metaverse. For Reality Labs, we expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) and investments to further scale our ecosystem,” Meta’s report said.

Reality Labs, the metaverse-focussed division of Meta, lost a whopping $13.7 billion (roughly Rs. 1,12,200 crore) last year.

The company’s optimistic approach towards the metaverse, however, does not come as quite a surprise after all, its rebranding revolves largely around this up-and-coming technology.

In May 2023, Meta also commissioned a study that claimed that the metaverse could contribute as much as $760 billion (roughly Rs. 62,36,088 crore) or about 2.4 percent to the US annual gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035.

The company suffered a rough 2022 amid a souring economic climate. This forced advertisers to cut back on marketing, and Apple’s data privacy changes, which reportedly have reduced leeway for ad personalisation.

After incurring back-to-back quarterly losses last year and industrial roadblocks, Meta had no option but to take tough, cost-effective decisions.

Earlier this year, Meta became the first Big Tech company to layoff over 11,000 employees. Later in April, another batch of 4,000 Meta employees were left jobless.

Meta’s profit for 2023 Q2 could be attributed to its internal restructuring.

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