On September 25, 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated Orion AR glasses during his keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event held at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Manuel Orbergozo | Reuters
although Yuan After successfully showing off its Orion prototype AR glasses in September, the social media giant continues to lose billions of dollars each quarter while developing its nascent virtual universe.
Meta announced its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, in which it said its Reality Labs unit, which develops augmented reality and virtual reality technology, recorded an operating loss of $4.4 billion. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expected the unit to post an operating loss of $4.68 billion.
Reality Labs’ third-quarter revenue increased 29% year-on-year to $270 million, lower than analysts’ expectations of $310.4 million. Reality Labs makes money primarily by selling Meta’s Quest VR headset and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
Meta first entered the VR market in 2014, when it was still known as Facebook. purchase VR startup Oculus spends $2 billion.
Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that developing VR and AR technology can make the company a leader in the next major personal computing platform.
For Meta, the investment is costly. Reality Labs has reported operating losses of more than $58 billion since 2020, after the company released its earnings report on Wednesday.
The culmination of all this spending was Zuckerberg showing off the Orion device at the company’s annual Connect conference in September.
Orion generated excitement and helped boost morale within Meta about Zuckerberg’s ambitious plans. According to CNBC, Meta hopes to capitalize on the unexpected success of its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, developed in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, to market future Orion AR glasses to consumers after attracting developers to develop apps for the device next year.
Also in September, Meta released its latest VR headset, the Quest 3S, positioning it as a more affordable way for consumers to experience VR, starting at $299. Last year, Meta released the more powerful Quest 3 VR headset, which started at $499.
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