$1bn revenue not enough to offset Meta's AR/VR Reality Labs' $4.4bn loss

Meta has published its earnings report for the three months ending December 31 2024, and despite $1.08 billion in revenue from its Meta Quest hardware, it has recorded a loss of $4.97 billion in its AR/VR Reality Labs division.

This is the fourth successive loss reported in this segment, with Reality Labs reporting successive losses of $3.8 billion, $4.5 billion, and, most recently, $4.4 billion in October 2024.

It brings overall losses for the last 12-month period from the Reality Labs segment to $17.7 billion, up from $16.1 billion in December 2023.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, however, told investors that the losses stem largely from continued Reality Lab R&D and Meta's Metaverse project, for which Zuckerberg said the next 12 months will be "a pivotal year".

Last month, Meta announced it would conduct "performance-based cuts", with 5% of its workforce facing redundancy.