Tech conglomerate Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, posted its financial results for the first quarter of 2022. While the company revealed its quarterly revenue to be around $27.91 billion, its metaverse unit once again lost about $3 billion as Meta looks to fast-track its efforts in this new business opportunity.
Per the earnings report, the company’s metaverse division – Facebook Reality Labs – incurred a loss of $2.96 billion in the first quarter after it continued to develop virtual reality and augmented reality-related products. The spending is more than 61% of the $1.8 billion loss in Q1 2021.
The RL division also posted revenue of $695 million from its endeavors, lower than the $877 million it gained in the previous quarter. On the other hand, the previous quarter also reported a loss of $3.3 billion from RL operations.
In an earnings call held Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg tried to comfort the company’s investors about metaverse-related initiatives, a conviction he believes would be as big as the internet one day. He said:
“I recognize it’s expensive to build this, it’s something that’s never been built before. And it’s a new paradigm for computing and social connection. We expect to be meaningfully better at monetization than others in the space, and we expect that should become a sustainable advantage for our platforms as they develop.”
Meanwhile, not all was bad for the company. Its daily active users rose by 3 million from the last quarter to 1.96 billion. Meta also posted earnings per share of $2.72, beating the analysts’ expectations of $2.56.
