“Metaverse is the future.” This phrase is often passed around in the crypto industry. In the past few months, the metaverse has become a prominent topic of interest among mainstream businesses. Move over them, governments around the world have poured their money into space. So it was not surprising that Meta [formerly Facebook] decided to take up space. What is surprising is that the metaverse division has endured a loss of about seven consecutive quarters.
Reality Labs of the Mark Zuckerberg-led company, the virtual reality and metaverse division, suffered losses of $2.8 billion. This was revealed in the Meta earnings call for the second quarter of 2022. Reality Labs revenue was $452 million. It should be noted that this division amassed $695 million in revenue in the first quarter.
As can be seen in the image above, total revenue for the second quarter of 2022 was $28.82 billion.
In addition, the global economy has taken a major hit in recent months.
Despite this demise, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, remained wildly positive about the metaverse. During the conversation, Zuckerberg suggested that these losses were not surprising and would last for several years. He further assured that this would be until the metaverse becomes more mainstream and mature.
He further added,
“Obviously this is a very expensive undertaking for the coming years. I am confident that we will be happy to have played an important part in this.”
Meta and Apple to lock up horns in the metaverse?
The whole world seems to be in the race for the metaverse. South Korea, Dubaiand Japan seemed to lead this race from now on. However, Zuckerberg believes that Apple could pose as a prominent addition to Meta. He believes that both companies are in a “very deep, philosophical competition.”
Zuckerberg further told its employees,
“This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and integrating closely, they can build a better consumer experience. And we believe there is a lot to do in terms of specialization at different companies, and [that] will enable a much larger ecosystem.”
Apple has reportedly been working on both VR and AR models. However, Zuckerberg believes that the future is not yet written here for the metaverse. Therefore, research seems to be their current priority.