- Zuckerberg claims his company remains focused on the metaverse, despite focusing on artificial intelligence during the latest earnings call.
- The metaverse division has lost 4 billion dollars and has yet to release Horizon Worlds.
- Reality Labs’ operating loss will rise in 2023, while Meta’s core business beat estimates with $28.6 billion in revenue.
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that reports that his company is leaving the metaverse behind less than two years after that October 2021 presentation is false.
However, he spent so much time talking about artificial intelligence on the earnings call on Wednesday, April 26, that few believed him. “He seems much more enthusiastic about AI and the developments in that environment than about the metaverse that made him change the name of the company,” many of the journalists who were at the Meta financial report agreed.
The numbers are clear: Zuckerberg’s company metaverse division lost $4 billion and has not yet released a version of Horizon Worlds that users can access with computers or smartphones, making it difficult to compete with Roblox.
Less than two years ago no other entrepreneur seemed more enthusiastic about the metaverse than the CEO of Meta.
He changed the company name to Facebook Meta and began investing billions of dollars in Reality Labs, the division of the metaverse that develops virtual and augmented reality technologies.
But the shareholders are not satisfied, stocks plunged and many think that Zuckerberg capitulated.
A year ago, on one of the earnings calls, the CEO talked a lot about Horizon Worlds: Mentioned her nine times.
On Wednesday, under pressure to cut costs and prioritize core businesses (Facebook and Instagram), Zuckerberg didn’t mention Horizon Worlds once.
Zuckerberg says he’s still excited about the metaverse
Zuckerberg’s turnaround comes as the concept of the metaverse is failing to gain much traction, and Meta was forced to lay off tens of thousands of employees after aggressive hiring during the pandemic.
In 2022, Meta reported its first drop in revenue and shares followed suit, plunging more than 44 percent from a 2021 all-time high.
This Wednesday, after speaking for long minutes about artificial intelligence, Zuckerberg tried to set the record straight: “Beyond AI, the other big trend in technology today that we are focusing on at Meta is the metaverse,” clarified.
And I add: “There’s like a narrative that we’re somehow taking our focus off the metaverse and I mean that’s not accurate.”
In the financial report, Facebook (or Meta) said that the losses will continue in 2023 and that they will even be greater than those in 2022. “We continue to expect the operating loss of Reality Labs to increase year-on-year in 2023,” said the CEO. .
Outside the metaverse, thanks to reduced costs, increased efficiencies, and steady growth, Meta’s core business — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp — beat analyst estimates, reporting $28.6 billion in revenue for the fiscal quarter. finished on March 31.
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