The company's VR division lost $2.96 billion on $695 million in revenues in the first quarter of 2022.
Meta has revealed its financial results for the first quarter of 2022 noting that it's the first full year that it is operating under the new branding. According to the report, the total revenue of the company amounted to $27.91 billion showing a 7% year-on-year growth.
Meta's Reality Labs division (former Facebook’s Oculus division) generated $695 million in revenue which reflects a 30% growth compared to the previous year when the division earned $534 million. However, Reality Labs' loss in the quarter increased from $1.83 billion in Q1 2021 to $2.96 billion.
Reality Labs is Meta's virtual reality division entrusted with building CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse. Among other things, it is responsible for the research and development of AR/VR apps as well as is tasked with developing the Horizon Worlds VR gaming platform.
As reported by Kotaku, since 2020, Reality Labs' spending has nearly reached $20 billion. Analysts note that such high expenses of the VR division did not greatly affect the state of the company itself. Although Meta's total revenue for the quarter exceeded the expectations, the figures were reached mainly due to the Facebook family and social network-related applications.
However, despite Meta's huge spending, investors apparently were satisfied with Meta's performance as its shares were up 13% in after-hours trading.
"We made progress this quarter across a number of key company priorities and we remain confident in the long-term opportunities and growth that our product roadmap will unlock," Mark Zuckerberg said. "More people use our services today than ever before, and I'm proud of how our products are serving people around the world."
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