Facebook’s executives expect “our investment in Facebook Reality Labs to reduce our overall operating profit in 2021 by approximately $10 billion.”
Facebook will begin breaking out its financial results into new new reporting segments next quarter with Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) being “augmented and virtual reality related consumer hardware, software and content” and the Family of Apps (FoA) representing “Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and other services.”
“We’ll begin disclosing financial metrics for Facebook Reality Labs separately from our Family of Apps,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted in a prepared statement. “This will provide investors with additional visibility into the investments that we’re making in augmented and virtual reality. In 2021, we expect these investments to reduce our overall operating profit by approximately $10 billion, and I expect this investment to grow even further for each of the next several years…I encourage you all to tune into Connect on Thursday to hear more about our vision and our work here in more detail.”
Zuckerberg is reportedly considering a rebrand of the entire company to reflect its focus on playing a defining role in the next era of personal computing. We may have also just gotten our first look at the Quest Pro headset which could be key to the organization’s next steps in VR and AR.
“There’s a whole ecosystem,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We’re building multiple generations of our VR and AR products at the same time, as well as a new operating system and development model, a digital commerce platform, content studios, and of course a social platform.”
Facebook says non-ads revenue is expected to be down year-over-year “in the fourth quarter as we lap the strong launch of Quest 2 during last year’s holiday shopping season.”
“We anticipate our full-year 2022 total expenses will be in the range of $91-97 billion, driven by investments in technical and product talent and infrastructure-related costs.”
Facebook’s headcount was 68,177 as of Sept. 30, 2021, an increase of 20% year-over-year.
