Meta's top gamble right now is a social VR platform for Quest devices called Horizon Worlds. The virtual world was recently featured in a Super Bowl Meta ad, and Zuckerberg called it 'the core of our metaverse vision.'
According to The Verge, during the Meta virtual all-hands earlier this week, along with the Metamates nickname being announced, the company's chief product officer, Chris Cox, gave employees a previously unreported update on Horizon's user growth.
Cox said that since Horizon Worlds rolled out to all Quest users in the United States (US) and Canada in early December, its monthly user base has grown 10-fold to 300,000 people.
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne confirmed the figure and said it includes users of Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, separate apps for attending live events in VR that use the same basic avatars and mechanics.
However, this number does not include Horizon Workrooms, a VR conference room that relies on an invitation system.
Before its December launch, Horizon Worlds was in beta for content creators to test gear in the virtual world.
Similar to how the game platforms Roblox or Microsoft's Minecraft work, Horizon Worlds allows people to build custom environments to hang out and play games as legless avatars.
Meta also announced that 10,000 separate worlds have been built on Horizon Worlds to date and that Horizon Worlds' private Facebook group of creators now has over 20,000 members.
Given that the platform has only been widely released a few months, it's too early to say whether its rapid growth will continue or whether the current users will stay on the platform.
However, Meta still hasn't revealed how many Quest headsets have been sold to date, which makes measuring success on Horizon a bit difficult. However, according to some information from third parties, it is estimated that Quest sales reach more than 10 million.
Zuckerberg recently said that Meta would release a version of Horizon for mobile in late 2022 to bring the early metaverse experience to more spaces beyond VR.
"So while the deepest, most immersive experiences will be in virtual reality, you'll also be able to access the world from your Facebook or Instagram apps, and maybe more from time to time," says the Meta Boss.
Furthermore, while Horizon Worlds is yet to make money on Meta, some pressure demands the platform to succeed, especially given how the company's stock has slumped as investors question the expensive metaverse program.