The metaverse, today, is not a business, but a money-burning machine. The company has presented this Wednesday the financial results of the first quarter of 2023 and, once again, the unit destined to make this ambitious project a reality, Reality Labs, has registered an operating loss of 3,992 million dollars.
The reality is that this scenario is not new. Meta’s efforts to develop her virtual world and related technologies to immerse her in it cost her just over $13 billion last year. Now, Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear in a shareholder conference: “This is a long-term project”
Meta assures that it continues betting on the metaverse
“A narrative has developed that we are somehow moving away from our vision of the metaverse, so I just want to say up front that that’s not accurate”, Said the head of the social networking company. In that sense, he has assured that they remain committed, although they have also been focusing on artificial intelligence.
The executive has assured that the virtual and augmented reality vision in which they are working involves a dedicated operating system. According to them, this advance will become “the basis of the next generation of computing.” Last year we saw how Project Cambria became the Meta Quest Pro. This year we could see a new glasses.
Returning to the economic level, although turnover exceeded analysts’ expectations and rose 2.6% to 28.645 million dollars, the benefit has also been weighed down by the extraordinary deliveries resulting from the massive layoffs of the “Year of Efficiency”. In other words, it has stood at 5,709 million dollars, a 24% drop.
In general terms, however, the company’s balance sheet has not disappointed the market and its shares have risen 10%. Facebook Daily Active Users (MAU) have grown by 4% year-on-year and ad impressions from its family of apps (Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram) have seen a 26% increase over the same period.
Images: Goal
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