Meta’s Reality Labs Beat Sales Targets by 40% in 2024

While many remain unconvinced about Meta’s next-level push, including VR and the metaverse, the stats don’t lie, with Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth today sharing with staff that Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is responsible for VR and AR, exceeded all of its sales and usage targets for 2024.

Reality Labs has been viewed as a money sink for the company, with Meta’s investments in its next-level projects exceeding $50 billion over the past four years. But Meta’s view is that this is an investment in its future, and its market dominance for years to come.

And now, it’s seeing the beginnings of the pay-off for its outlay.

According to Bosworth, Reality Labs grew its sales by 40% in 2024, with the popularity of its Ray Ban Meta glasses helping to drive adoption of its advanced products.

Ray Ban Metas got a significant upgrade early last month, just in time for Christmas, with Meta’s AI chatbot now integrated into the glasses, and available in hands-free mode, while it also now offers real-time language translation, along with its other video recording and audio playback functions.

Demand for Meta’s Ray Ban glasses was already exceeding production before this release, with the additional functionality, tied into the broader AI hype, helping to drive more adoption, and push sales higher than expected.

And Meta has high hopes for the device, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg noting that he expects that glasses will eventually supersede phones as the key connective medium, becoming “the next major technology platform.”

And going on the numbers, he may well be right, while sales of Meta’s Quest VR headsets also got a boost in the Christmas period, with the Horizon app reaching the top of the free app charts on Apple's App Store in the US and the UK.

It’s still very early in the cycle, and Meta has been transparent in projecting a decade-long adoption process for its grand metaverse vision. But we’re starting to see the first foundations lock into place, with advanced functionality providing valuable utility for many people’s day-to-day lives.

It may still be too far out for some to bet on, but it’s becoming clearer that AR glasses will be a key connective tool, and that VR will offer significant new opportunities.

At the same time, Meta’s also making some changes to its management structure to support its increasing product focus, which will also become more of a consideration as it moves into AR glasses.

In an internal memo, Bosworth announced several new appointments.

As reported by Business Insider:

“As part of the changes, Brent Harris, VP of Meta's wearables business group, and Brett Vogel, the company's VP of product marketing and Metaverse, and the product marketing team will now work under the team of Meta's Chief Marketing Officer, Alex Shultz. Colan Sewell, VP and chief revenue officer of Reality Labs, along with its sales employees, will now report to Meta's head of partnerships and business development, Justin Osofsky. Alessio Sanfilippo, VP of analytics in Reality Labs, will report directly to Bosworth.”

The changes align with the increased revenue push from its VR and AR products, which is expected to ramp up significantly with the launch of new models of its VR headsets, and its AR glasses in the next couple of years.

As per Bosworth:

“Now that the industry has their eyes set on the categories we've defined, we'll need to tap into Meta's full power to win what comes next. That means our go to market needs to have tight companywide alignment."

In many ways, this is a key inflection point, with the first seeds of the next stage now starting to show promise, and newer technologies, like AI, hastening adoption. Indeed, the capacity to have a constant AI companion could end up being the first key selling point for Meta’s Ray Ban glasses, which will soon be available in new models to cater to varying use cases.

As such, this could be just the first stage of the next big push, which will show Meta’s grand plan in a new light.