Meta’s social VR platform Horizon hits 300,000 users

Image: Meta

Facebook has spent billions of dollars to build hardware and software that extends beyond traditional social media in order to bet its future on virtual reality and the metaverse. The company hasn't shared much with the public about how well its early bets are doing.

The highest-profile bet right now is a social virtual reality platform for the Quest headset. It was featured in Meta's Super Bowl ad, and on the company's most recent earnings call. Chris Cox, the company's chief product officer, gave an update on the company's user growth during a virtual Meta all-hands earlier this week.

An employee who heard the remark said that the monthly user base has grown by a factor of 10x to 300,000 people. The stat was confirmed by Joe Osborne, who said that it included users of the separate app for attending live events in virtual reality that uses the same avatars and basic mechanics. The number doesn't include a virtual reality experience that relies on an invite system.

The creators of the game were in a private test of the world-building tools. People can build custom environments to hang out and play games in as legless characters on the platform. Over 20,000 people are members of Meta's private Facebook group for creators, which was announced this week that 10,000 separate worlds have been built in.

It's too early to tell if the platform's rapid growth will continue or if it will be able to retain users over time. Cox didn't tell employees that monthly users for social products are higher than daily users. The holiday season boost in sales of the Quest headset helped drive interest in the product.

It's hard to gauge the success of the hardware platform it runs on when Meta doesn't disclose how many Quest headsets it has sold to date. Several third-party estimates peg sales at over 10 million. Meta will be releasing a version of Horizon for mobile phones later this year, which will bring early metaverse experiences to more surfaces.

While virtual reality is going to be the deepest and most immersive experience, you're also going to be able to access the worlds from your Facebook orInstagram apps as well, and probably more over time. It would make sense to bring the app to mobile because it would make it even more of a competitor to Rec Room, a well-funded, social gaming app with 37 million monthly users across gaming consoles, mobile phones, and virtual reality.

Even though the company doesn't make money yet, the pressure is on for it to be successful because of how the company's stock has tanked as investors question its expensive metaverse push.

Meta has to make it reliable enough for millions of people to use. A lot of people were unable to attend a recent Foo Fighters concert held in Venues after the Super Bowl, and there are still no ways for creators to make money. If its early user growth is any indication, there's a chance that it's big.