Meta will reveal its fourth-quarter results this week, allowing investors insight into how the company’s rebranding and commitment to the metaverse has impacted its finances.
As part of this quarterly report, Meta will reveal the results of its augmented and virtual reality hardware unit Reality Labs for the first time. Previously, the company stated that this investment could cause a massive hindrance to its 2021 profit and did not expect it to be profitable in the near future.
“It’s going to be huge for me as an analyst, not having to surgically dig through Facebook earnings … and just see a lens into the Reality Labs,” said Stephanie Llamas, VR market analyst at VoxPop.
In the company’s efforts to build out the metaverse, it has ramped up hiring efforts for engineers and purchased virtual reality gaming studios that it is betting will play a significant role in the next iteration of the mobile internet.
Meta has already indicated that its non-advertising revenue will be down year-over-year, particularly compared to the impressive launch of Its VR Quest 2 headsets.
However, investors will likely have the company’s core digital advertising business in mind when viewing the quarterly report following the company stating it faced “significant uncertainty” during the fourth quarter.
Meta has yet to lay out how it will be able to milk revenue from the metaverse, but the tech giant is confident in this move. Last November, the company described potential avenues to make money, such as giving brands more opportunities to participate in this digital universe through digital shops to running VR events.