Meta reported its first quarterly revenue decline earlier this year. This quarter’s financial results for Meta aren’t giving its investors much hope. Inflation is partially to blame for the 4% year-over-year fall in Meta’s revenue, which CFO David Wehner noted during the company’s results call today. Net income, however, was only $4.395 billion, a significant decrease from $9.194 billion year over year.
Due mostly to Meta’s significant investment in the metaverse, income has decreased. The virtual reality business of Meta, Reality Labs, lost $3.672 billion this quarter. The same thing occurred in Q1, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the “exciting” 2030s to defend a $3 billion deficit.
Additionally, Meta casually revealed that some of these expenses will be covered by the release of its next consumer-grade Quest headset the following year. This week, Meta recently started shipping its first premium Quest Pro headsets.
Also discussed by Zuckerberg were Meta’s grand intentions for the metaverse. He now describes Meta as “iterating on out in the open” on Horizon Worlds, the company’s unimpressive social VR platform. Additionally, he described the platform as a “early product.”
He also stressed Meta’s dedication to the overall advancement of VR and AR technology.
Regarding social media, Zuckerberg provided some recent statistics.
In comparison to six months ago, he claimed that there had been more than 140 billion Reels plays on Facebook and Instagram. Reels generates $3 billion in annual income across all channels. In order to compete with TikTok-like services, Meta is actively investing in AI content discovery, as the business has said in previous earnings calls.
Meta also mentioned a big decrease in hiring over the upcoming year. 3,700 net new hires were made by the business in the third quarter, down from 5,700 in the second quarter.
