Meta announced its second-quarter earnings yesterday. While Meta reported double-digit revenue growth for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2021, the company’s metaverse arm, Reality Labs, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, once again announced a massive loss. Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse dream continues to be crushed by reality with each passing quarter.

Reality Labs and reality

Reality Labs recorded $276 million in sales in the second quarter, compared to $339 million in revenue in the first quarter. The unit’s loss this quarter was $3.7 billion. The loss in the first quarter was $3.99 billion. Last year, Meta’s Reality Labs unit lost a total of $13.7 billion, while revenue of $2.16 billion was due in part to the sale of the company’s Quest-branded VR headsets. When all these figures are combined, Reality Labs has recorded a loss of $21.3 billion since the beginning of 2022.

Meta attributes the operating losses in its Reality Labs unit to ongoing product development activities in the augmented reality/virtual reality space and investments made to scale the ecosystem. Reality Labs, on the other hand, has lost more than $33 billion in resources to Meta since 2020. Despite the losses, Meta has not given up on its ambition in this area. The company has announced a VR subscription service that costs $7.99 per month. Also, the new Meta Quest 3 title was announced last month.