Meta burned $2.96 billion on Reality Labs last quarter

gamedeveloper.com:

Meta's first-quarter financial results for 2022 are here and a bit mind-boggling. It's the first full year that the company is operating under the "Meta" branding, with a big pivot towards being a "metaverse company." And so far its Reality Labs division is losing almost $3 billion a quarter ($2.96 billion, to be precise), while only pulling in about $650 million in revenue.

In the first quarter of 2021, Meta Reality Labs had lost $1.8 billion while pulling in $534 million in revenue. These numbers were also reflected in its full-year results for 2021. 

With roughly 17,000 employees plugging away on Reality Labs products, that's obviously a lot of mouths to feed for a new vision of the internet. In the context of Meta's overall business, it's still not driving the company into the red (its overall revenue for the three-month period ending March 31 2022 was $27 billion, mostly driven by $26 billion in revenue from the "Facebook family of apps").

Investors were apparently satisfied with these results, as Meta's stock ticked upward 13 percent in after-hours trading. 

In comments to investors, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a browser-based version of Horizon Worlds, its shared-world metaverse app for Meta Quest 2, will becoming later this year. A new virtual reality headset called "Project Cambria" will also debut in 2022, and will be aimed at the professional market. The device is meant to "replace your laptop or work setup," and will feature advanced eye-tracking tech.

Zuckerberg also stated that Meta's goal is for Horizon Worlds users is that if they use a virtual reality headset like Quest 2 or Project Cambria, their facial expressions will be translated onto their in-world digital avatars. This was part of his argument