Meta Platforms, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, has cut the prices of its Quest virtual and mixed-reality headsets, in a move to boost lagging sales.
The company cut the price of the high-end Quest Pro by a third to $1,000 from $1,500, while the Quest 2 is now down to $430 from $500, a 14 per cent reduction, the California-based company said in a blog post on Friday.
"Our goal has always been to create hardware that’s affordable for as many people as possible to take advantage of all that VR has to offer," Meta said.
"VR is a powerful social platform and creative technology, and the more people with access to it, the better."
The price changes will take effect on Sunday in 20 countries, the company said.
Meta's push into VR is part of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's vision of a widely digital future, and key to his broader plans for the metaverse.
The metaverse, based on Web3, is the virtual space where people represented by avatars can interact. It is also poised to reshape workplaces and businesses by using new techniques to streamline operations.
The global VR market is projected to hit $227.34 billion by 2029, from an estimated $16.67 billion in 2022, at a compound annual growth rate of more than 45 per cent, according to Fortune Business Insights.
The price cut for the Quest Pro, in particular, comes a few months after it was released, in October. It was geared towards a higher-end market, with Mr Zuckerberg having touted it to the media as a "work-focused" device.
However, it still had a high price tag. Its original cost was more expensive than the highest-end Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S devices.
The Quest 2, meanwhile, was launched in 2020, before Facebook was rebranded to Meta. While it became popular with its more affordable price tag, selling more than 15 million units, sales fell in 2022.
That resulted in Meta's Reality Labs unit, which manages its VR and metaverse operations, to lose $13.7 billion in 2022, with revenue in the fourth quarter alone declining 17 per cent on an annual basis.
In either case, VR headsets remain a niche market. Even Mr Zuckerberg's metaverse worlds have received criticism for being underdeveloped and underwhelming.
Meta's struggles were reflected last month when it reported a 55 per cent annual drop in fourth-quarter net profit, underpinned by escalating costs and a decrease in the average price per advertisement. The company posted a net profit of more than $4.6 billion in three months ended December.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that Meta was planning another round of job cuts, with “thousands” of workers expected to be affected.
The cost-cutting measures include pushing some managers into lower-level roles, flattening the layers of management between Mr Zuckerberg and the company’s interns, the Post said, citing an unnamed source.
UAE tour of Zimbabwe
All matches in Bulawayo
Friday, Sept 26 – UAE won by 36 runs
Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
Sunday, Oct 5 – First T20I
Monday, Oct 6 – Second T20I
Company%20profile
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PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
MATCH INFO
Mainz 0
RB Leipzig 5 (Werner 11', 48', 75', Poulsen 23', Sabitzer 36')
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Emirate: Abu Dhabi
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