Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday that WhatsApp and Messenger will drive the company's next wave of sales growth
• WhatsApp and Messenger will drive the company's next wave of sales growth, Mark Zuckerberg told employees as he sought to address financial concerns after Meta's earlier mass layoffs.
Meta Platforms Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that WhatsApp and Messenger would drive the company's next wave of sales growth, as he sought to address concerns about finances following Meta's first mass layoffs.
Zuckerberg addressed sharp questions at a company-wide meeting a week after Meta laid off 11,000 employees, describing the pair of messaging apps as being "much quicker to monetize" than their advertising juggernauts Facebook and Instagram. It did, according to comments heard by Reuters.
On Wednesday, the company announced it would let go of 13 percent of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees, as part of a plan to reduce costs at the social-media platform. Zuckerberg said he was "sorry" and took responsibility for the decisions. Meta's job cuts will be the first in the company's 18-year history.
“We talk a lot about very long-term opportunities like Metaverse, but the reality is that business messaging is probably going to be the next major pillar of our business as we work to further monetize WhatsApp and Messenger. are," he said.
Meta enables some consumers to talk and transact with merchants via chat apps, including a new feature announced Thursday in Brazil.
Zuckerberg's comments reflect a change in tone and emphasis following a heavy focus on extended reality hardware and software investment since announcing a long-term ambition to create an immersive metaverse last year.
Investors have questioned the wisdom of that decision as Meta's core advertising business has struggled to more than halve its stock price this year.
In his remarks to employees, Zuckerberg explained how much the company was spending in Reality Labs, the entity responsible for its Metaverse investments.
People were Meta's biggest expense, followed by capital expenditures, most of which went to infrastructure to support its suite of social media apps, he said. About 20% of Meta's budget was going to Reality Labs.
Within Reality Labs, the unit was spending more than half its budget on augmented reality (AR), with smart glasses products emerging "over the next few years" and some "really great" AR glasses later in the decade. Zuckerberg said.
"It's the most challenging job in some ways ... but I also think it's the most valuable potentially part of the job over time," he said.
About 40% of Reality Labs' budget went towards virtual reality, while about 10% was spent on futuristic social platforms, such as the virtual world it calls Horizon.
Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer at Run Reality Labs, said AR glasses needed to be more useful than a mobile phone in order to appeal to potential customers and meet high standards for attractiveness.
Bosworth said he was wary of developing "industrial applications" for the devices, which were described as "niche" and wanted to focus on building a wider audience.
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