Meta burned $19 billion on VR final 12 months, and 2026 received’t be any higher

Earlier this month, Meta laid off 10% of the employees for Actuality Labs, its digital actuality unit, reportedly reducing as many as 1,000 workers. Now, in a improvement that appears straight associated, the corporate has revealed that the unit misplaced many billions of {dollars} final 12 months.

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 12 months, 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 towards what the unit generated in gross sales: $955 million in This autumn and a few $2.2 billion all through 2025.

Throughout the firm’s earnings name on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg struck a tone of optimism for his firm’s VR staff 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 the 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 stated, throughout the name. Nonetheless, the CEO famous that losses have been anticipated to proceed. “I count on Actuality Labs losses this 12 months to be much like final 12 months,” Zuckerberg stated, whereas noting that this 12 months would “possible be the height, as we begin to regularly cut 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 12 months of VR efforts, the corporate confronted harsh criticism — even being known as an “worldwide laughingstock.” Almost 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 plenty of 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 staff as a VR house that might be used to carry conferences.