During a earnings call on the first day of the month, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, has indicated that he will continue his plans with the metaverse. This is striking as the figures are anything but promising. In the last quarter of 2022, Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse division, made a loss of 4.3 billion dollars. This brings the total loss for Reality Labs in 2022 to a respectable $13.7 billion.
Zuckerberg is steadfast
No reason for Zuckerberg to change course. He announced in 2023 a ‘next generation consumer headsetfor marketing virtual reality systems.
“No signal I’ve seen shows that we need to adjust Reality Labs’ long-term strategy,” said a steadfast Zuckerberg.
Reality Labs chief financial officer Susan Li shares Zuckerberg’s optimism. She also expects the losses to continue into 2023.
“We still expect Reality Labs losses to continue into 2023. We will continue to invest in this industry as we see the long-term opportunities.”
Despite Reality Labs’ mounting losses, Meta exceeded expectations last quarter. With $32.1 billion in proceeds, that turned out to be a lot higher than expected and the Meta share even saw a nice price increase.
The potency of the metaverse
Last year, Zuckerberg regularly came under fire for his all-in approach to the metaverse. Major investors even went on their knees in desperation in an open letter. They demanded a change of direction and a completely different investment approach from the company. According to the critics, the future of the metaverse is far too uncertain, and therefore the conviction of Meta is simply irresponsible.
In any case, Zuckerberg will not be discouraged. In addition, the crypto industry also has an optimistic view for the metaverse. Last month, that optimism was reflected by the aggressive rises of metaverse tokens. Metaverse tokens outperformed bitcoin in January.