Meta burned $19 billion on VR last year, and 2026 won’t be any better

Earlier this month, Meta laid off 10% of its workforce at Reality Labs, its virtual division. he says he is cutting as many as 1,000 employees. Now, in what appears to be a directly related development, the company has revealed that the unit lost billions of dollars last year.

Wednesday, Meta’s income statement showed that his business lost about $ 19.1 billion in 2025, which is more than the loss in 2024 (that year, the losses were about $ 17.7 billion). In its fourth quarter, the sector lost $6.2 billion, the report shows.

The losses stood against the sector’s projected sales: $955 million in Q4 and $2.2 billion in 2025.

During the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg expressed optimism for his company’s VR team when he said that losses in 2026 are expected to remain the same.

“At Reality Labs, we’re directing most of our investment into glasses and wearables going forward, as we focus on making Horizon a huge success on Mobile and making VR a profitable ecosystem for years to come,” Zuckerberg said at the time. However, the CEO said that losses are expected to continue. “I expect that the loss of Reality Labs this year will be similar to last year,” said Zuckerberg, saying that this year “may be the peak, as we begin to gradually reduce our losses going forward.”

When Meta announced the “metaverse” in 2021, the move was seen with some skepticism and, in its first year of VR, the company. was harshly reprimanded – even called “international humor.” Almost half a decade later, that doubt it didn’t really slow down. As the VR industry continues to lose revenue and Meta continues to move inexorably away from VR and towards AI, it is unclear what will turn the industry around.

Last week, CNBC he said thatin addition to the layoffs, Meta had plans to close several of its VR studios — another sign that the company’s interest in virtual reality is waning. The company also recently announced that it would abandoning its Standalone Workrooms project – which the company offered to office workers as a VR environment that could be used for meetings.