Metaverse fails to take off, Horizon Worlds largely unexplored; shares tumble: Report

Facebook, rechristened as Meta, is struggling with numbers, nearly a year after the rebranding, as per a report by Wall Street Journal.

Horizon Worlds, a flagship product of Meta which attempted to provide a comprehensive Metaverse experience to the users, has faltered to take off.

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According to the publication, after the launch last year, Mark Zuckerberg-owned Meta had kept an ambitious target of having 500,000 monthly active users on board. However, the current number of users stands at a rather unflattering 200,000, thereby failing to meet internal performance expectations.

Read more:Mark Zuckerberg 'loses' more than 118 million followers on Facebook - Here's why

Consequently, the analysts at Meta have already reduced the projection to 280,000 by the end of the year. While the user numbers being low is an alarming situation, what's more distressing is that those logging in to Horizon Worlds, did not return to the platform after the first month.

The report states that only nine per cent of the free virtual reality online video game has been explored by at least 50 people while the majority of the Metaverse has been left relatively unexplored.

Notably, Horizon Worlds was Zuckerberg's USP for the platform. In the game, individuals can pick an avatar and pop into the virtual spaceto interact with one another.

To double down on his venture, Zuckerberg earlier this week launched the $1,500 Quest Pro VR which contains an advanced mobile Snapdragon computer chip. The attempt is to further drum up excitement around the product Meta has developed.

Read more:Meta's new Quest Pro headset, mixing real and virtual worlds, makes debut

Since last year, Meta's shares have gone down more than 60 per cent, losing $700 billion in market value in the process.

The problems have only been exacerbated in recent times for other platforms as well. As reported by WION, last week Meta issued a warning that the login information of around a million users was potentially compromised.

Read more: Meta warns one million users about potential data leak through malicious apps

According to the official statement, the leak happened due to “malicious apps”. The applications were listed on Google Play Store and the Apple Store as games and other types of apps to trick people into downloading them and accessed the phone through the Facebook welcome page.

(With inputs from agencies)

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