Meta plans to lose even more money building the metaverse while its ads business shrinks
Summary
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reiterated his commitment to spending billions of dollars developing the metaverse amid investor concern about the health of his companys online advertising business. Revenue in that business unit dropped nearly 50% year-over-year to $285 million, which Meta chief financial officer Dave Wehner attributed to "lower Quest 2 sales." "Beyond 2023, we expect to pace Reality Labs investments such that we can achieve our goal of growing overall company operating income in the long run." Zuckerberg acknowledged that part of the reason his company is developing the metaverse is to ensure that it owns a platform in the future that wont be adversely impacted by the decisions of its rivals, like Apple . But the bigger reason Zuckerberg is developing the metaverse is because technology companies can be more innovative when they build both the software and hardware that underpins a computing platform, he said.