Mark Zuckerberg Keeps Metaverse Bet Big Despite Losing $13.7 Billion in 2022

The Meta chief is ready to keep developing the technology for the prospects it has in the coming years.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Richa Sharma | Updated: 2 February 2023 15:49 IST

Mark Zuckerberg Keeps Metaverse Bet Big Despite Losing $13.7 Billion in 2022

Photo Credit: DealBook/ Twitter

Zuckerberg expects to see more losses in its metaverse unit this year

Highlights

Meta’s Reality Labs works on AR, VR, and XR technologies
Metaverse will benefit social networking, gaming industry
Metaverses are created on blockchain networks

Reality Labs, the metaverse-focussed division of Meta, lost $13.7 billion (roughly Rs. 1,12,200 crore) last year. Between September and December last year, Meta's metaverse unit recorded its largest quarterly loss that amounted to $4.3 billion (roughly Rs. 35,200 crore). Despite these staggering losses, Mark Zuckerberg's hopes pinned to the metaverse have stayed unaffected. The Meta chief is ready to keep developing the technology for the prospects it has in the coming years.

In Meta's earnings call on February 1, Zuckerberg said he has seen no signal to shift Meta's strategy for Reality Labs for a long term.

In fact, Zuckerberg as well as Susan Li, Meta's Chief Financial Officer, expect to see more losses in the Reality Labs unit in 2023, CoinTelegraph reported.

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A fully functional virtual universe built on the decentralised blockchain networks, the metaverse will enable people to exist in a parallel world. Metaverse natives will be able to meet, work, party, and play in the virtual world as digital avatars.

Social media, gaming, advertising as well as the automobile industries are expected to be beneficiaries of the boom in industrial metaverse adoption.

In January this year, Nokia CTO Nishant Batra said in a World Economic Forum report that the metaverse technology is expected to see a widescale industrial adoption in the coming times.

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The market for metaverse services could reach an estimated $800 billion (roughly Rs. 59,58,700 crore) over the next two years, research reports suggest.

Zuckerberg, who revolutionised social networking with Facebook in 2004, testified to his faith in the metaverse by rebranding Facebook to Meta in 2021.

The chief of Meta has decided to give five to ten years before metaverse blooms into the promising industry it looks like in present times.

In December 2021, Zuckerberg had revealed that around this time, only 20 percent of Meta's functional focus is on developing the hardware and software to support the metaverse ecosystem.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Mark Zuckerberg, Metaverse, Meta

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More