Meta revealed its third-quarter earnings these days and posted a $4.4 billion loss in its AR/VR Truth Labs category.
This is the third loss reported this year in this branch, with Truth Labs reporting a loss of $3.8 billion during its first quarter and $4.5 billion in its second.
For its Truth Labs business, Meta said third-quarter earnings rose 29% to $270 million, which was “driven by hardware sales.”
Truth Labs’ expenses also increased 19% year over year to $4.7 billion, which Meta said was primarily due to higher expenses related to headcount and infrastructure costs.
Meta said it expected Truth Labs’ ongoing losses in 2024 to “increase significantly year-over-year” thanks to continued product development efforts and investments to further scale its technologies.
Meta mentioned that it has reached “several milestones around Reality Labs and the integration of AI and wearable devices” this quarter, such as the Ray-Forbid Meta glasses, but said nothing about its raw mixed reality headset, the former CEO of Quest 3S, Mark Zuckerberg, noted that the intact hardware “delivers the best capabilities of the Quest 3.”
When asked about the current losses for its Truth Labs business, CFO Susan Li mentioned: “I would say that Reality Labs is clearly one of our long-term strategic priorities, and we expect it to be a significant area of investment. […] as we move towards the very ambitious product roadmap we have there.”