Meta reported its third-quarter results today, posting a $4.4 billion loss in its AR/VR Reality Labs division.
It's the segment's third reported loss of the year, with Reality Labs posting a $3.8 billion loss in the first quarter and a $4.5 billion loss in the second.
For its Reality Labs business, Meta said third-quarter revenue rose 29% to $270 million, “driven by hardware sales.”
Reality Labs' expenses also rose 19% year-over-year to $4.7 billion, which Meta said was driven primarily by higher headcount and infrastructure costs.
Meta noted that it expected Reality Labs' operating losses to “increase significantly year over year” in 2024 due to continued product development efforts and investments to further expand its technologies.
Meta said it hit “several milestones this quarter around Reality Labs and the integration of AI and wearables,” such as the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but said little about its latest mixed-reality headset, the Quest 3S, beyond CEO Mark Zuckerberg. the new hardware “brings the best of Quest 3.”
When asked about the continued losses of her Reality Labs business, CFO Susan Li said: “I would say that Reality Labs is clearly one of our strategic long-term priorities and we expect it to be an area of significant investment. […] as we move towards the very ambitious product roadmap we have there.”