Meta has sold almost 20 million Quest headsets

Meta has sold almost 20 million Quest headsets to date, according to company VP for VR, Mark Rabkin.

As reported by The Verge, Rabkin shared the milestone during a roadmap presentation focused on the company's VR and AR efforts.

During the presentation, workers at the company formerly known as Facebook were told that Meta's upcoming Quest 3 headset will be thinner than the Quest 2, but twice as powerful.

The headset, slated to launch later this year, will also cost a little bit more than the Quest 2 headset, which retails for $399.

A Metaverse Quest

The news comes as Meta attempts to navigate choppy waters in a bid to realize its nascent metaverse dream. 

Last month, The Washington Post reported that the company is preparing to lay off thousands of workers and toss some projects on the scrapheap.

That story was published just months after Meta confirmed it would be cutting 11,000 jobs—so, around 13 percent of its workforce—including some within its Reality Labs division.

Reality Labs houses Meta's augmented and virtual reality related consumer hardware, software, and content, and the segment is hemorrhaging cash.

According to Meta's financial report for the full year ended December 31, 2022, Reality Labs delivered an operating loss of $13.7 billion across the entire fiscal year.

Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Meta Quest 2 "did quite well" in terms of sales, however, but Meta is still braced for more losses in 2023.

"On Reality Labs, we still expect our full year Reality Labs losses to increase in 2023, and we're going to continue to invest meaningfully in this area given the significant long-term opportunities that we see," said Meta CFO, Susan Li, back in February.