Meta Reports $4.5B Loss

 

Meta Reports $4.5B Loss in Metaverse Division Amid Strong Q2 Growth

 

In Q2 of this year, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms suffered an additional $4.5 billion loss on its metaverse division, Reality Labs. Revenue for Meta’s second-largest quarter ever came in at $49 billion, up 22% year over year, according to an earnings call held on July 31.

Moreover, Zuckerberg pointed out that Meta’s CFO Susan Li said that “younger users” were swarming to Facebook Marketplace. Contradicting the “public perception” that Facebook was mostly used by older people.

Furthermore, the tech giant located in California reported a profit of $13.5 billion. A large portion of this profit, according to Zuckerberg, was driven by the company’s progress in artificial intelligence. And the expansion of its applications, such as WhatsApp and Threads.

                                                        

Following the earnings call, Meta’s stock price increased 7.1% in after-hours trading. The company’s Q2 results were better than expected by most analysts. According to Zuckerberg, the company’s AI assistant Meta AI is expected to surpass all others by last year  in terms of use. He also said that the AI-infused Ray-Ban Meta smart spectacles, which were introduced in September of last year, had shown “good traction” in terms of sales.

In this year , Meta intends to devote a lot more money to investing in AI research and development, since it wants to sharply raise its capital expenditure.

Briefly mentioned was the company’s metaverse research section, Reality Labs, which created virtual reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3. Despite a whopping $4.5 billion loss, Reality Labs recorded $353 million in revenue for the second quarter. Over the course of its 2019 launch, Reality Labs has squandered $59.9 billion.