Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has recently announced a price cut on its virtual and mixed-reality headsets, Quest 2 and Quest Pro. The move aims to improve sales of the devices, which have been lagging behind expectations. Meta has reduced the price of Quest Pro by a third, from $1,500 to $1,000, while Quest 2’s price has been slashed by 14% to $430 from $500. The price changes will take effect in 20 countries from Sunday.
According to Meta, the price cuts are part of its goal to create affordable hardware to make VR accessible to more people. The company sees VR as a powerful social and creative technology that has the potential to reshape workplaces and businesses through new techniques that streamline operations.
The push towards VR and the metaverse is part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a widely digital future. The metaverse is the virtual space where people represented by avatars can interact, and Zuckerberg sees it as the future of the internet. Meta’s reality labs unit is responsible for managing the company’s VR and metaverse operations.
The global VR market is projected to hit $227.34 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 45%, according to Fortune Business Insights. Despite this, VR headsets remain a niche market, and even Zuckerberg’s metaverse worlds have received criticism for being underdeveloped and underwhelming.
The Quest Pro was released just a few months ago in October 2022 and is designed for the high-end market. Its original cost was higher than that of the highest-end Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S devices, which limited its appeal. On the other hand, Quest 2 was launched in 2020, before Meta’s rebranding, and became popular with its more affordable price tag, selling more than 15 million units. However, sales of the device have declined in 2022, resulting in Meta’s Reality Labs unit losing $13.7 billion and experiencing a 17% decline in revenue in the fourth quarter alone.
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