Meta posts best quarterly revenue since 2021 despite continued metaverse losses

Meta reported its best quarter since 2021, achieving $32 billion in revenue, an 11 percent increase from the previous year.

However, the company faced significant losses in its Reality Labs division, responsible for virtual and augmented reality projects. During the second quarter of 2023, Reality Labs reported a $3.7 billion loss, while generating only $276 million in revenue.

The losses in Reality Labs come as Meta intensifies its efforts in the metaverse, and the company expects these losses to grow significantly in the coming year. Despite this financial challenge, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed full commitment to the metaverse vision during the company's earnings call.

When asked about the metaverse spending, Zuckerberg pointed to the forthcoming Quest 3 headset, set to launch at Meta's Connect event in September. He referred to it as the company's most significant headset release since 2020, explaining the expenses to the innovation involved in bringing the product to market.

Amid the focus on the metaverse, Meta has celebrated other successes as well. Zuckerberg spoke highly of the success of Project Reels, which is now garnering 200 billion daily views on Facebook and Instagram thanks to the company's renewed focus on AI-powered recommendations. He also mentioned the launch of Threads and the company's major language model Llama 2.

Despite early analytics data showing a decline in Threads engagement, Zuckerberg expressed optimism. He noted that more users are returning daily than expected and sees the app eventually reaching a user base of "hundreds of millions."

On the personnel side, Meta confirmed that most of the layoffs, which amounted to more than 20,000 jobs since last fall, have been largely completed.