Meta has reportedly sold almost 20 million Quest headsets so far.
Meta’s VP of VR Mark Rabkin gave the statistic to staff during an internal roadmap presentation, The Verge’s Alex Heath reports. For comparison, PlayStation 5 had officially sold 32 million units as of February 2 and estimates from December put Xbox Series X|S at around 20 million.
Meta hasn’t ever officially revealed hardware unit sales for its consumer VR headsets, but there have been some hints. In March 2021 now-CTO Andrew Bosworth revealed Quest 2 “outsold not just its predecessor, but all of its predecessors combined”. A product recall in July 2021 showed 4 million Quest 2 facial interfaces had been sold in the USA, both separately and included with the headset.
Most directly, the CEO of Qualcomm – the company behind the Snapdragon XR2 chip powering Quest 2 – said in November 2021 “Quest 2 was 10 million units”. A Qualcomm spokesperson backtracked on that statement saying it was “an average of third-party market size estimates” – but this could have just been to save face with Meta given their relationship.
Quest 2 originally launched in 2020 starting at $300, but last year Meta raised the price to $400, leading to lower sales. Rabkin apparently told staff newer buyers are not as engaged as early adopters. “Right now, we’re on our third year of Quest 2,” he reportedly said. “And sadly, the newer cohorts that are coming in, the people who bought it this last Christmas, they’re just not as into it as the ones who bought it early.”
The internal presentation also reportedly had details about Quest 3, a cheap “accessible” 2024 headset, and a “way out in the future” high-end headset with photorealistic “codec” avatars.
