Meta's Reality Labs incurs a $4.5 billion loss during the second quarter.

• In the second quarter, Meta's Reality Labs unit, which is responsible for its metaverse technologies, reported an operating loss of $4.48 billion.
• Since late 2020, Reality Labs has incurred approximately $50 billion in losses.
• The revenue generated by Reality Labs primarily comes from their Quest line of VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, resulting in a 28% increase from $276 million to $353 million.

The company is still spending billions of dollars each quarter on its ambitious plans to develop the metaverse.

Meta's Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss of $4.48 billion in the second quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations of a $4.55 billion loss.

Mark Zuckerberg's massive investments into the hardware and software that underpins what he says will be the next era of personal computing have resulted in Reality Labs unit generating cumulative losses of about $50 billion since late 2020.

The revenue generated by Reality Labs from its Quest family of VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses was $353 million, which represents a 28% increase from the previous year's $276 million. However, analysts had predicted that the unit would generate $371 million in sales.

In September, Meta launched the Quest 3 VR headset at a starting price of $499. Later, Apple released its Vision Pro VR and AR headset, priced at $3,500. In June, CNBC reported that started delivering its Vision Pro headset to China, where it costs 29,999 yuan, or $4,128.

Meta has been promoting its smart glasses, which it co-develops with Ray-Ban, as the VR market remains nascent. Zuckerberg has highlighted advances in artificial intelligence and related large language models as enhancing the capabilities of smart glasses.

In July, EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri announced that Meta intends to become a shareholder in the company, expanding their partnership that began in 2020.

In October, Meta released its second-generation smart glasses at a starting price of $299. During an April earnings call with analysts, Zuckerberg stated that there is a "significant market for stylish AI glasses without a display."

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