Meta declared that it would break out divisional data to illustrate the performance and investments in a group that it thinks critical to the next generation of online social interactions. The headsets themselves are the biggest promising moneymaker from Meta Reality Labs. The Meta Quest 2 had a significant increase in sales over the holidays, and the company is already planning to release its newest headset, called “Project Cambria,” later this year. In the first quarter, FRL generated $695 million in revenue, a small fraction of the $27.2 billion generated by Meta’s family of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The “metaverse” sector was expected to bring in $683 million in revenue, according to analysts. “It’s not going to be a large revenue or profit contributor to the business until those products truly hit the market and scale in a meaningful way, and this market ends up being big, this is setting the groundwork for a very exciting 2030” Zuckerberg added. Late in the quarter, Meta’s social VR app began rolling out creator monetization tools, but such in-app purchases won’t make much of a difference if the platform doesn’t attract a significant number of new users.
