Reality Labs, a division of Meta, encountered a staggering $3.7 billion operating loss during the second quarter of this year.
The social media giant, however, continues to affirm its unwavering dedication to the development of the metaverse.
Meta's latest earnings results, released on Wednesday, divulged that the unit managed to garner $276 million in revenue for the same quarter, a decline from last year's $452 million.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, emphasized the company's commitment to both AI and the metaverse vision during a call:
"As our investments in AI continue, we remain fully committed to the metaverse vision as well," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an earnings call.
We've been working on both of these two major priorities for many years in parallel now, and in many ways the two areas are overlapping and complementary."
Susan Li, Meta's chief financial officer, disclosed that Reality Labs' expenses surged to $4 billion in the second quarter, marking a 23% increase attributed to a rebound in employee-related costs and the reduction in Reality Labs loss reserves from the previous year's Q2.
This $3.7 billion loss follows a $4 billion loss in the preceding quarter and a $2.8 billion loss in the same period last year.
Despite these considerable setbacks, Zuckerberg remains steadfast in his belief in the vast potential of both the metaverse and AI.
"I've said on a number of these calls that the two technological waves that we're riding are AI in the near term and the metaverse over the longer term,"