Meta Platforms Inc. is cutting jobs at its Reality Labs unit, which makes the company’s Quest mixed reality headsets and the software that powers them.
The Facebook parent announced the layoffs today. A source told Bloomberg that more than 100 staffers are affected. Meta, in turn, specified that the workforce reduction impacts the Oculus Studios and Supernatural groups within Reality Labs.
Oculus Studios develops content such as video games for the company’s headsets. Supernatural, in turn, provides a mixed reality fitness app of the same name. The app offers access to a catalog of instructor-led exercise videos for a monthly fee.
Meta obtained Supernatural by buying the app’s original developer, a startup called Within Unlimited Inc., in 2023. Meta reportedly paid about $400 million for the app. The deal took more than a year to close because U.S. antitrust regulators raised concerns it may reduce competition in the mixed reality software market.
According to News, Meta will enable employees impacted by the layoffs to apply for other roles. The job cuts reportedly don’t affect the coaches who prepare Supernatural’s exercise videos. However, Meta plans to decrease the amount of new clips that Supernatural publishes per week.
“Some teams within Oculus Studios are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “These changes are meant to help Studios work more efficiently on future mixed reality experiences for our growing audience, while still delivering great content for people today.”
The job cuts may help Meta improve the financial performance of Reality Labs, which lost $4.96 billion on $1 billion in revenue during the last three months of 2024. However, it’s unclear whether Supernatural was a major factor behind the unit’s unprofitability. Last year, News cited multiple analysts as saying that Meta likely loses money on each mixed reality headset it sells.
The company introduced its newest headset, the Quest S3, in September. The device is 40% less expensive than Meta’s flagship Quest 3, which hints it too is being sold at a loss. The Quest S3 offers a display with a resolution of 1832 by 1920 pixels and a more than two-hour battery life.
The job cuts announced today follow several earlier rounds of layoffs at Meta that affected significantly more employees. At the start of the year, the company announced plans to let go about 3,600 workers. In 2022 and 2023, Meta laid off 21,000 staffers as part of a cost-cutting initiative.
Photo: Meta
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