Meta burned $19 billion on VR final yr, and 2026 gained’t be any higher

Earlier this month, Meta laid off 10% of the workers for Actuality Labs, its digital actuality unit, reportedly chopping as many as 1,000 staff. Now, in a improvement that appears straight associated, the corporate has revealed that the unit misplaced many billions of {dollars} final yr.

On Wednesday, Meta’s earnings report confirmed that its embattled digital actuality enterprise had misplaced some $19.1 billion in 2025, which is barely greater than it misplaced in 2024 (that yr, the losses hovered round $17.7 billion). In its fourth quarter, the unit posted a lack of $6.2 billion, the report reveals.

These losses stood in opposition to what the unit generated in gross sales: $955 million in This fall and a few $2.2 billion all through 2025.

In the course of the firm’s earnings name on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg struck a tone of optimism for his firm’s VR group whereas noting that losses in 2026 are anticipated to be very a lot the identical.

“For Actuality Labs, we’re directing most of our funding in direction of glasses and wearables going ahead, whereas specializing in making Horizon an enormous success on Cellular and making VR a worthwhile ecosystem over the approaching years,” Zuckerberg mentioned, in the course of the name. Nonetheless, the CEO famous that losses have been anticipated to proceed. “I anticipate Actuality Labs losses this yr to be much like final yr,” Zuckerberg mentioned, whereas noting that this yr would “seemingly be the height, as we begin to regularly scale back our losses going ahead.”

When Meta introduced a pivot towards the “metaverse” in 2021, the transfer was regarded with a certain quantity of skepticism and, throughout its first yr of VR efforts, the corporate confronted harsh criticism — even being known as an “worldwide laughingstock.” Practically half a decade later, that skepticism hasn’t precisely subsided. Because the VR enterprise continues to lose cash and Meta continues an aggressive pivot away from VR and towards AI, it’s unclear what precisely will flip the ailing enterprise round.

Final week, CNBC reported that, along with the layoffs, Meta had plans to shutter quite a few its VR studios — one other signal that the corporate’s curiosity in digital actuality is waning. The corporate additionally just lately introduced that it might be retiring its standalone Workrooms app — which the corporate had pitched to workplace employees as a VR house that may very well be used to carry conferences.