On February 3, Meta (formerly Facebook) released its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday (February 2), local time, in which it disclosed the financial situation of its Reality Labs division for the first time. Reality Labs is the division responsible for building Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse.
Data shows that Reality Labs will lose more than $10 billion in 2021 alone, specifically:
- 2019: Revenue of $501 million, net loss of $4.5 billion
- 2020: Revenue of $1.14 billion, net loss of $6.62 billion
- 2021: Net loss of $10.19 billion and revenue of $2.27 billion (revenue includes hardware, such as the Meta Quest virtual reality headset) In this regard, the CFO of Meta said that the operating loss of Meta’s “metaverse” business will continue to increase in 2022 .
A lower Metaverse business also weighed on Meta’s full-year profitability, excluding losses from Reality Labs, which would have posted a profit of more than $56 billion for the full year last year.