Meta Actuality Labs achieved its highest ever quarterly income in This autumn 2024, $1.083 billion, following the launch of Quest 3S.
Actuality Labs is the division of Meta behind Quest headsets and their Horizon software program platform, the expertise aspect of the Ray-Ban Meta sensible glasses, and analysis & improvement of AR glasses and their sEMG wristband enter system.
In 2024 general Actuality Labs introduced in $2.146 billion, up 13% from 2023. That places Actuality Labs on par, income smart, with firms like Unity and Roblox.
“The variety of individuals utilizing Quest and Horizon has been steadily rising,” Mark Zuckerberg advised traders, with out giving particular person numbers.
Being the vacation season, This autumn has all the time been the strongest quarter for Actuality Labs since Meta began breaking out its financials in This autumn 2020. However This autumn 2024 was the strongest ever, a continued success from This autumn 2023, which noticed the launch of Quest 3 drive the earlier quarterly income report of $1.071 billion.
The report income is being reported simply weeks after it was revealed that Quest 3S was the highest promoting video games console on Amazon US in 2024, regardless of solely releasing in October, and the Meta Horizon app wanted to arrange Quest headsets was the #1 free iPhone app on Christmas Day 2024. Additional, SteamVR noticed near-record utilization in December.
Nonetheless, Meta Actuality Labs remains to be nowhere close to making its first revenue. The report income got here alongside report spending too, a whopping $6.05 billion, leading to a “loss” of $4.967 billion.
However whereas describing this as a loss is technically appropriate in a monetary sense, in actuality it is extra correct to explain most of it as long-term funding. XR headsets like Quest are nonetheless a comparatively early expertise, removed from maturity, and as of 2022 greater than 50% of Actuality Labs spending was on the analysis and improvement of AR glasses, a future product line that hasn’t even launched but.
Meta’s AR/VR {Hardware} Groups Should Minimize Spending By 20%
Meta’s AR/VR {hardware} groups have been advised to chop spending by 20% by 2026, The Info stories.
Meta could also be planning to slowly rein in spending beginning this 12 months although, as final summer time it reportedly advised its {hardware} groups to chop spending by 20%. Whereas in all earlier quarters Meta’s CFO Susan Li had warned traders that Actuality Labs losses would improve, there was no such assertion on this earnings name.
Mixed with revenues from Quest 3S and the HUD glasses set to launch this 12 months, two Quest 4 fashions reportedly deliberate for 2026, and an ultralight headset and AR glasses in 2027, Meta will seemingly quickly begin steering Actuality Labs on the very lengthy path to eventual profitability, which Mark Zuckerberg beforehand indicated to traders ought to arrive someday within the 2030s.
