The recent Meta Connect 2024 event, which highlighted a mix of new products and technology advancements from Meta Platforms META, may prove to be justification that the company's bets on the metaverse will soon pay off.
What Happened: At the 2024 Meta Connect, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted a cheaper Quest virtual reality headset, new artificial intelligence features and the Orion smart glasses.
"A lot of the stuff we've been talking about for a longer time, glasses, mixed reality, AI, it's happening. And we can start to see how the future of computing and the future of human connection are going to look, and it's pretty awesome," Zuckerberg said.
When talking about the Orion glasses, Zuckerberg said the company is now "getting closer to achieving the dream of Reality Labs."
Reality Labs is the segment of Meta Platforms that covers its bets on the metaverse, virtual reality and augmented reality.
The segment is part of Meta's heavy bets on these ideas to show growth in the coming years, so much so that the company formerly known as Facebook for many years changed its name to Meta Platforms on Oct. 29, 2021.
"Connection is evolving and so are we," the company said at the time. "The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection. Our company's vision is to help bring the metaverse to life, so we are changing our name to reflect our commitment to this future."
Zuckerberg announced the name change at the Facebook Connect event in 2021.
"To reflect who we are and what we hope to build, I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg said from that moment on the company would be "metaverse-first, not Facebook-first."
The company changed its name to Meta Platforms and eventually changed its stock ticker from FB to MVRS. In 2022, the company announced it would change its ticker from MVRS to the current META.
Meta Platforms underwent several rounds of layoffs over the last couple of years, which have led to questions from shareholders and employees about whether the company invested too aggressively in the metaverse for growth.
The company's Meta Connect event and recent earnings reports suggest further growth could stem from its ongoing investments in the metaverse.
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Investing $1,000 in FB Stock: Trading as ticker FB at the time, shares traded at around $325.52 on Oct. 28, 2021, when the rebranding and new company focus were announced.
A $1,000 investment in Facebook shares could have bought 3.07 shares then. Today, the $1,000 investment would be worth $1,758.53, up 75.9% over the last nearly three years.
For comparison, investing in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, which tracks the S&P 500 Index, would have performed worse. A $1,000 investment in the SPY at the time would be worth $1,240.11 today, up 24%.
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This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.
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© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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