Looking at the current decisions of Facebook’s senior executives, it is understood that they think XR (extended reality) and metaverse will be a revolutionary computing platform. Facebook, which has recently accelerated its metaverse project, plans to invest tens of billions of dollars more to find a place for itself in these areas.
Future plans for XR, Oculus, FRL Research and more were reworked in the company’s Q3 earnings calls. During the meeting, which was carried out over the financial reports, Facebook stated the purpose of the changes it made as follows:
“We hope to provide investors with additional visibility into our investments in augmented and virtual reality.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the call that the company expects FRL (Facebook Reality Labs) spending to total $10 billion in 2021 alone. In addition, Zuckerberg advised investors to expect that number to “increase further in the next few years.”
Looking at the released data, Facebook spends more in this category than anyone else in the industry. Companies such as Apple and Microsoft, which may rival Facebook in this area, avoid openly stating their investments and expenditures under this heading. On the other hand, Facebook seems to want its work on this subject to be easily learned by its competitors.
Also during its earnings call, the company announced that its non-advertisement revenues totaled $734 million in Q3 2021, up 195% from the previous quarter. The product that had a large share in this revenue was stated as the sales of Oculus Quest 2.
Saying that it has spent about 10 billion dollars in XR this year, Facebook is a matter of curiosity where it spends this amount. Facebook’s XR project has not yet reached the customers, so Facebook customers are wondering where the money is spent. It is not yet known how the $10 billion investment is allocated to research, procurement or R&D departments. Despite these details, the prestige of the company and the curiosity aroused by augmented reality arouse excitement in users.
