Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse bet falters as sale of VR headsets drops
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recešived more bad news during the holiday season as his foray into the metaverse has yet to pay dividends for his struggling tech company.
Sales of virtual reality (VR) headsets declinedź¦¬ 2% year-over-yeš¬ar in 2022, researchers on Wednesday.
As of early December, sales of VRš headsets generated just $1.1 billź¦ŗion, according to the research analytics firm NDP Group.
Ben Arnold, NPD’s consumer electronics analyst, told CNBC that sales of Meta’s $400-per-unit Quest 2 VR headset, which is considered the standard-setter in the market, also declined, though he did not say by how much.
Overall, there was a 12% drop in the number of global augmented reš¦ality (AR) and VR headset shipments compared to 2021, according to the analytics firm CCS Insight. There were 9.6 million deliveries worldwide of headsets this year.
āVR had an amazingāØ holiday in 2021,ā Arnold told CNBC. āIt was aš» great time last year to get one of these products, and VR totally crushed it.ā
Revenue generated from sales of VR headsets doubled last year from $530š§ million in 2020, according to NPD.
The Post has sought comment from NPD and Meta.
Meta, the parent company of social media apps Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has pivoted from its traditional, bread-and-butter ad-based business model tš¦o the metaverse, which is powered by VR and AR technology.
But the shift has come at a significant cost to Meta’s bottom line.
The company has seen the value of its stock dip by more than 65% from the start of this year. On Wednesday, Meta’s stock price closed down 1.1%.
In late October, Meta announced a drop in revenue for the second consecutive quarter.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based companyĀ earned $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share, in the three-month period that endeź¦¬d Sept. 30. Thatās down 52% from $9.19 billšion, or $3.22 per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue fell 4% to $š§27.71 billion from $29.01 billion, slightly higher than the $27.4 billion that analysts had predicted.
Zuckerberg, whose net worth was valued at $44.4 billion as of Wednesday, was worth a personal all-time high of $140 billion last year.
While Zuckerberg has preached patience and is playing the long game, his bet on the metaverse has thus far turned out to be a fšailure.
Jim Cramer, the CNBC analyst who vocally touted his support of Zuckerberg and his company’s management team, gave an emotional, on-air mea culpa in Octoberź¦ after Meta reš leased its most recent earnings report.
Meta will have its work cut šout for it as other tech giants move ź§into the metaverse in hopes of grabbing VR headset market share.
Apple, Sony, š§šValve, and Hewlett Packard are either planning to unveil their own headsets or have already offered their products on the market.