During the Facebook report of income for the 4th quarter 2020 CEO mark Zuckerberg said that the Quest 2 “on the way to becoming the mainstream headset virtual reality”, noting that the device led to an increase in the company’s income not related to advertising 156%.
In previous earning reports, Zuckerberg was generally downplayed the value XR of the business of the company as a promising investment that is expected will not be repaid for many years. His mood has changed markedly in the last report about the income, where he told the investors that the business Facebook in region XR is “one of the areas where I’m most happy with our progress towards 2021”.
Although Facebook has not confirmed how many devices Quest 2 have been sold so far, Zuckerberg was optimistic about the sales performance of the headset, stating that, in his opinion, it “is on track to becoming the mainstream headset virtual reality”.
It is not entirely clear what he means by “mainstream”, although to guess, apparently, not difficult. At Oculus Connect 5 in 2018, the annual conference of the XR developers of the company, Zuckerberg explained that, in his opinion, 10 million users VR is an important milestone for the company, to create a sustainable ecosystem for VR developers.
The big question is, what should be done to all developers was beneficial to strive for VR? We think that to achieve this level we need about 10 million people on the platform. This is the threshold at which the number of people using and buying the VR content, making it sustainable and profitable for all types of developers. And once we will overcome this threshold, we think that the content and the ecosystem is just going to explode. It is important to note that this threshold is not 10 million people in all types of VR. Because if you create a game for Rift, it will not necessarily work on the Go or PlayStation VR. So, we need 10 million people to [one] platform.
Thus, although the Quest and the Quest 2 is probably still not have reached the 10 million units sold, confidence of Zuckerberg that Quest 2 may be the mainstream headset suggests that the threshold of 10 million units may be within reach.
“In previous blocks I talked about our long-term goals for the future, when talking about virtual reality, Zuckerberg said investors — but I think the results of this quarter show that this future has already arrived”.
Zuckerberg also said that the Quest 2 was “one of the hottest gifts for the holidays this year” and has become the main factor that contributed to the preparation of the company non-advertising revenues in the 4th quarter in the amount of 885 million dollars. Chief operating officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg said this is an increase of 156% compared to the same period last year, and emphasized that this occurred “due to high holiday sales Quest 2”.
Looking to the future, Zuckerberg confirmed that the successor Quest 2 is already in development.
“We also continue to work on new equipment [VR]. The new equipment will fit the same platform, so content that works in Quest 2, must be compatible with the promotion of the [new equipment], so we’re going to create one big database for plants based on existing VR headsets”.
Although this will not be a surprise for anyone who paid attention to it, it contrasts with Sony, whose PSVR has long taken a leading position in sales of VR headsets, but refrains from specifying any plans to create the following headset models
Facebook has also made no secret of their plans to create a headset AR; the company has shared an early look at a prototype last year. During a call, Zuckerberg confirmed the plans to start over with smart points, and then in the future to launch augmented reality glasses. He also said that Apple likely competitor in the market of augmented reality.
“[…] In the long term, as we move to building the next computing platform, I think we expect to see [Apple] as a bigger competitor [AR]”.
However, it is unclear if Facebook is some inside information about Apple’s plans XR, or Zuckerberg refers to recent reports suggesting that Apple will release their own headset in the next year.
