Meta still gaga over the metaverse, Zuckerberg says

Meta refutes all turnaround towards the metaversewhich remains according to Mark Zuckerberg a priorityafter theartificial intelligence. In fact, the firm continues toinvest heavily.

Has Meta quietly buried its ambitions in the emerging theme of metaverse ? That’s what a letter from its CEO and founder to his employees might suggest. In an internal memo from March, Mark Zuckerberg Was making artificial intelligence the priority of Gafam.

The leader assures however to maintain the course on the metaverse. This reminder was addressed to investors and shareholders on the occasion of the presentation of the latest quarterly results of the firm.

The metaverse buried? Wrong, says Zuckerberg

Beyond theAIthe other big technology wave we’re focusing on is the metaverse,” says Zuckerberg.

“A discourse has developed that we are somehow moving away from the vision of the metaverse. I want to say up front that this is not accurate “he insists.

Moreover, the investments made by the giant of Web2 in the underlying technologies of its metaverse confirm it. During the first quarter of its fiscal year 2023 alone, the division Reality Labs has recorded losses of 4 billion dollars.

By 2022, these losses amounted to almost $ 14 billion. And the CEO warns that investments will continue.

We continue to expect Reality Labs’ operating losses to increase year-over-year in 2023″, Meta says.

339M in revenue for Reality Labs

To finance these expenses, the American player can rely on the profitability of its other activities (cured by waves of layoffs). Revenues linked to its applications, including Instagram and WhatsAppIn the first quarter of 2009, the number of WhatsApp users reached 28.6 billion.

By comparison, Reality Labs generates only $339 million in revenue. However, this amount has almost doubled over a year. Moreover, Zuckerberg insists that the metaverse is a long-term project.

Moreover, its products in this area are achieving encouraging results, the CEO claims. “More than a billion Meta avatars have been created “he cites as an example to illustrate this.

Quest users logged on for more than 1 hour a day

Another indicator customary satisfies the boss of Meta.

More than half of Quest’s daily users spend more than an hour using their device,” he says.

However, these metaverse consumers are still few and far between, even in the Web3 versions. According to a study conducted by Gartner in 2022, 25% of people will spend at least one hour per day in the metaverse by 2026. At 50%, Meta could even claim to be ahead of the adoption curve.

The firm also estimates that the maturity phase of the metaverse is around 2030. One obstacle remains: the multiplication of minivers. “The offers are plethoric. The issue is rather to know how to make standards succeed and converge interests “one of his consultants emphasized.

Follow Corners.en on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook or Telegram to not miss anything.