Last Updated on April 27, 2023 by Bitfinsider

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, appeared more ebullient about the metaverse than any other business leader less than two years ago.

He renamed the company from Facebook to Meta and began investing billions of dollars into Reality Labs, the division of the company that develops virtual- and augmented-reality technologies.

However, stockholders grimaced. The stock plummeted. Then, Zuckerberg partially capitulated. On last year’s earnings call, the CEO spoke at length about Horizon Worlds, Meta’s primary metaverse product, mentioning it nine times. Under pressure to reduce expenses and prioritise core businesses such as Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg neglected to mention Horizon Worlds even once during the previous quarter.

Meta has been forced to lay off tens of thousands of employees, after recruiting aggressively during the pandemic, because the concept of the metaverse has failed to gain much traction, and the metaverse has failed to gain much traction. In 2021, Meta disclosed its first-ever decline in revenue, and since then, the company’s stock has declined by more than 44%.

The company reported revenue of $28.6 billion for the fiscal quarter ending in March on Wednesday, surpassing analysts’ expectations. This was due to cost cutting, a push for greater efficiency, and steady growth of its “Family of Apps” business, which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

During the same time period, Reality Labs generated $339 million in revenue, which was more than half of what the division generated a year prior. However, Zuckerberg reported positive developments regarding the metaverse, which he described as a “long-term project.”