Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has no plans to change its long-term strategy for Metaverse, despite operating losses for its Reality Labs business in 2022.
Meta’s Q4 earnings released on February 1 showed Reality Labs lost $13.7 billion in 2022 – the biggest annual loss on record for the metaverse building division.
The fourth quarter was costly, with the division losing nearly $4.3 billion, which was also the department’s biggest quarterly loss since the financials for the business were first published.
In a February 1 earnings call, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was firm on the company’s metaverse strategy. Answering a question about the company’s efficiency in how it applies to Reality Labs, he replied:
“There are no signals that I’ve seen so far that indicate that we need to switch Reality Labs’ strategy for the long term.”
He added that later in 2023 the company will launch a “next generation consumer headset” following the October 2022 launch of the Quest Pro Virtual Reality (VR) headset.
Meta’s chief financial officer, Susan Li, also doubled down on the Reality Labs business echoing Zuckerberg’s statement from the Q3 earnings call that losses in the business will increase in 2023.
“We still expect Reality Labs’ full-year loss to widen in 2023, and we will continue to invest significantly in this area as there are significant long-term opportunities.”
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Meta’s overall revenue for the fourth quarter was $32.1 billion, reportedly beating Wall Street expectations.
The better-than-expected revenue numbers sent Meta shares soaring after the bell, gaining nearly 19.5% in after-hours trading at the time of writing, according to Yahoo Finance.