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

Earlier this month, Meta cut 10% of its staff for Reality Labs, its virtual reality unit, the news is cutting up to 1,000 employees. Now, in a development that seems directly related, the company has announced that the unit lost billions of dollars last year.

On Wednesday, Meta earnings report shows that the defeated virtual reality business has lost about $ 19.1 billion in 2025, which is slightly greater than what was lost in 2024 (that year, the loss was about $ 17.7 billion). In the fourth quarter, the unit lost $6.2 billion, the report showed.

The loss is against what the unit generated in sales: $955 million in Q4 and some $2.2 billion in 2025.

During the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg struck a tone of optimism for the company’s VR team when he noted that losses in 2026 are expected to be about the same.

“For Reality Labs, we’re directing most of our investment into glasses and wearables going forward, while we focus on making Horizon a huge success on Mobile and creating a profitable VR ecosystem for years to come,” Zuckerberg said during the call. However, the CEO noted that losses are expected to continue. “I expect Reality Labs’ losses this year to be the same as last year,” Zuckerberg said, while noting that this year “is likely to be the peak, as we start to reduce the losses we’re going to incur.”

When Meta announced a pivot to the “metaverse” in 2021, the move was regarded with a certain skepticism and, during the first year of its VR efforts, the company face harsh criticism– even referred to as “international laughter.” Nearly half a decade later, that skepticism not exactly receding. As the VR business continues to lose money and Meta continues to pivot aggressively away from VR and towards AI, it is unclear what exactly will turn around the sick business.

Last week, CNBC reportedin addition to layoffs, Meta has plans to shutter some of its VR studios—another sign that the company’s interest in virtual reality has waned. The company also recently announced that it will independent Workrooms application-that the company has given its office employees a VR room that they can use for meetings.