The company that rebranded from Facebook to Meta is still focused on social media.
So said Meta Founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who added that he wanted to correct the perception that the company is primarily devoted to building the metaverse, The New York Times reported Wednesday (Nov. 30).
“The vast majority of my time and the vast majority of the company’s effort is going toward social media efforts,” Zuckerberg said during a video conference that was part of the DealBook Summit in New York, per the report.
Investors’ concerns that he and Meta had not been paying attention to the firm’s core business have contributed to a 64% drop in the price of the company’s shares over the past year, as well as thousands of layoffs.
What’s more, while Meta has invested billions of dollars into its metaverse projects, observers’ reaction to the results so far have been tepid, the report said.
Zuckerberg said at the event that the firm’s investment in Reality Labs — the division that handles its virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) projects — accounts for only 20% of Meta’s portfolio.
While saying that making big investments in the metaverse around the time the economy turned south was a “mistake,” Zuckerberg also suggested that the overall metaverse push would prove doubters wrong.
“If you’re getting skepticism, you’re pushing hard enough,” Zuckerberg said, per the report.
This news comes about two weeks after reports that Meta plans to ends its Portal smart display and its smartwatch projects as it focuses on core businesses in the wake of sweeping job cuts.
That report came two days after the firm laid off 11,000 workers.
Zuckerberg acknowledged at the time that Meta had misjudged eCommerce spending levels, projecting they would continue at the same pace as they had during the pandemic.