It's Apple vs Meta for mixed-reality supremacy
PC and phone sales are winding down. Both Apple and Meta have bet billions that mixed-reality headsets are next.
When Meta announced a record-breaking profit during its quarterly earnings report last week, it also celebrated another significant milestone. For the first time ever, quarterly revenue from Reality Labs, its VR company, exceeded USD1 billion.
Yet on that front Mark Zuckerberg was quickly upstaged. Last Friday, the very next day, Apple began selling its Vision Pro headset in the US. The tech giant moved an estimated 200,000 units, generating about USD700 million in revenue – over a single weekend.
“Apple is the king of hardware technology and has essentially crushed Meta right out of the gates with the Vision Pro,” Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives told Capital Brief. “We believe Meta will have some positive impact from Reality Labs over the next 12 to 18 months but Apple has stolen the AR/VR show."
It is the first skirmish in a war between Meta's Quest headsets and Apple's Vision Pro that is likely to rage into the 2030s. The stakes for both Apple and Meta, currently the second and seventh most valuable in the world respectively, are enormous.
