Meta's Reality Labs reports a $3.85 billion loss in the first quarter.

• Mark Zuckerberg's investment in the metaverse remains a costly venture, with the company consistently reporting significant losses each quarter.
• In 2021, Zuckerberg renamed his company from Facebook to Meta to align with his vision for the future of computing.

Despite the increasing competition in the virtual reality market, Facebook's parent company shows no signs of reducing its losses from investing in the metaverse.

Meta's Reality Labs unit reported an operating loss of $3.85 billion in its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. Despite this, revenue in the metaverse division increased by about 30% to $440 million, which is only around 1% of Meta's total sales for the quarter.

According to StreetAccount, analysts predicted an operating loss of $4.31 billion and sales of $512.5 million for the quarter.

Since the end of 2020, when Meta started reporting the business segment separately, Reality Labs has lost over $45 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, envisions the metaverse as the next frontier, a digital world that combines productivity and recreation. In 2021, he renamed his company from Facebook to Meta to reflect his vision for the future of computing.

For now, developing metaverse technology remains a fledgling and costly effort.

In September, the company released the Quest 3 VR headset, the newest version of its mixed reality hardware, priced at $499. Meanwhile, Apple began selling its $3,499 Vision Pro in February, boasting a "spatial computing" experience.

Meta has announced that it will collaborate with third-party hardware manufacturers to develop new VR headsets based on the Meta Horizon operating system used in its Quest headsets. Zuckerberg stated that although Apple has dominated the phone market with its closed system, Meta's move is aimed at promoting an "open model" that will shape the future of computing.