Meta and Tencent strike VR headset deal for China market
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The news: Facebook owner Meta will sell a new, low-cost virtual reality headset to the China market under a deal struck with Tencent, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The numbers: The size of the deal is unknown, but Tencent will have exclusive rights to sell the headset from some time in late 2024. The deal comes 14 years after Facebook was banned in China and has taken about a year of negotiations.
The context: Meta was a global leader in the VR headset market in 2023, with about half the market share worldwide, WSJ reports. China's current front-runner in the space, TikTok owner ByteDance, has recently cut hundreds of jobs due to weak sales. Beijing blocked Facebook in 2009 following political unrest in the country, but Meta still profits from the region by selling ads to Chinese companies on Facebook and Instagram.
The source: Wall Street Journal
