首页 Review 正文

Meta Universe is spending a lot of money, and needs Facebook advertising business to "subsidize the family"

youki676
198 0 0
Mark Zuckerberg really has to pray that growth in Facebook's advertising business doesn't slow down again.

The co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms (META) took the stage at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters on Wednesday to promote its latest efforts in mixed reality. Mixed reality is a technology that fuses virtual reality with images of the real world. There weren't many surprises at the event, especially considering Zuckerberg revealed the company's new Quest 3 headset in June to give himself a head start ahead of Apple's (AAPL) launch of its first mixed reality device a week later. Zuckerberg also used Wednesday's event to hitch a ride on generative AI, announcing a new personal assistant chatbot called Meta AI.

Meta is far from the only big tech company besides Apple still dabbling in hardware. Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon.com (AMZN) held events last week to show off new lines of devices that will launch in the fall. Google plans to unveil its latest Pixel smartphone at an event in New York next week.

For the most part, such businesses are barely a hobby for these big companies. Devices accounted for just under 3% of Microsoft's total revenue in the fiscal year that ended in June, according to Visible Alpha, and analysts estimate they contributed a similar percentage to Google parent Alphabet Inc. 's (GOOG) revenue over the same time frame. Amazon's hardware business is so small relative to the company's annual revenue of more than $500 billion that analysts don't bother to give an estimate of its revenue.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, continues to shine on the hardware side. Reality Labs, Meta's business unit that develops virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology, accounted for just 1.5% of the company's total revenue in the 12 months to June. The business unit also generated an operating loss of $15.7 billion during the period. Over the past four quarters, this loss in the division has actually reduced operating profit at Meta's Family of Apps by about 35%; The app family consists primarily of the Facebook and Instagram advertising businesses. In contrast, Alphabet's Other Bets reduced operating profit in Google's core business by about 7 per cent over the same period.

For Meta, the situation isn't going to get better anytime soon. Meta warned on its fiscal second quarter conference call in July that Reality Labs' losses would "increase substantially" next year. While there was always the possibility that the newly launched Quest 3 headset would be a hit, the VR/AR market to date has proven to be more of an area prone to quickly stalling. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), shipments of Meta headsets fell 72% in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year ago, which was helped by the short-lived popularity of the Quest 2. IDC also expects total shipments of head-mounted devices across the industry to decline 3% this year.

That may explain why Zuckerberg himself seems eager to change the subject. After announcing that the Quest 3 would begin shipping in October, he quickly turned to AI, the hottest topic in the tech industry right now. In addition to the Meta AI chatbot, he also announced other, more professional chatbots featuring celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, and Kendall Jenner. Meta will also start selling new smart glasses with built-in Meta AI, built in partnership with Ray-Ban, in October.

But AI also comes at a cost. And unlike other big tech companies like Microsoft and Google, which have already put prices on their new services based on generative AI, Zuckerberg said nothing about the business model involved in the new AI tools announced on Wednesday.

As a result, the company, which is still in its "year of efficiency," faces rising costs, even after cutting nearly 16,000 jobs. Meta's stock has soared 147% this year, making it the second-best performer in the S&P 500, largely on the belief that recent growth in Facebook and Instagram advertising will continue to boost.
If the advertising business slows, Zuckerberg's meta-universe won't be able to withstand it.
CandyLake.com 系信息发布平台,仅提供信息存储空间服务。
声明:该文观点仅代表作者本人,本文不代表CandyLake.com立场,且不构成建议,请谨慎对待。
您需要登录后才可以回帖 登录 | 立即注册

本版积分规则

  •   知名做空机构香橼研究(Citron Research)周四(11月21日)在社交媒体平台X上发布消息称,该公司已决定做空“比特币大户”微策略(Microstrategy)这家公司,并认为该公司已经将自己变身成为一家比特币投资基金 ...
    caffycat
    5 小时前
    支持
    反对
    回复
    收藏
  •   每经AI快讯,11月20日,文远知行宣布旗下自动驾驶环卫车S6与无人扫路机S1分别在新加坡滨海湾海岸大道与滨海艺术中心正式投入运营。据介绍,这是新加坡首个商业化运营的自动驾驶环卫项目。 ...
    star8699
    前天 19:48
    支持
    反对
    回复
    收藏
  •   上证报中国证券网讯(记者王子霖)11月20日,斗鱼发布2024年第三季度未经审计的财务报告。本季度斗鱼依托丰富的游戏内容生态,充分发挥主播资源和新业务潜力,持续为用户提供高质量的直播内容及游戏服务,进一步 ...
    goodfriendboy
    前天 20:09
    支持
    反对
    回复
    收藏
  •   人民网北京11月22日电 (记者栗翘楚、任妍)2024广州车展,在新能源汽车占据“半壁江山”的同时,正加速向智能网联新能源汽车全面过渡,随着“端到端”成为新宠,智能驾驶解决方案成为本届广州车展各大车企竞 ...
    3233340
    10 分钟前
    支持
    反对
    回复
    收藏
youki676 新手上路
  • 粉丝

    0

  • 关注

    0

  • 主题

    3