Meta partners with Tencent to bring a VR headset to the Chinese market.
• Meta and Tencent want to jointly bring VR headsets to the Chinese market
• Sales should start at the end of 2024
• ByteDance and Apple compete
Meta cooperates with Tencent
Meta and Tencent have struck a deal to sell a new low-cost virtual reality (VR) headset in China, Reuters reports. The US internet company is thus returning to a market where Facebook and Instagram have been blocked for years. The preliminary deal will now make Tencent the exclusive seller of the headset in the Middle Kingdom, explains Reuters, citing the Wall Street Journal, which first reported it.
The video game manufacturer will begin sales at the end of 2024, sources familiar with the matter told the newspaper. This also gives Meta the chance to return to the Chinese market after a full 14 years and thus compete with TikTok owner ByteDance, which itself produces a VR headset.
A possible price is not mentioned in the reporting and requests for comment from Reuters were not responded to. Meta sells the Quest 2 headset in the US at a starting price of $300. The Quest Pro headset is priced at $1,000. It was only at the beginning of the year that Meta introduced the Quest 3, which is available starting at $500.
China-USA: Tense relationship
The cooperation between Meta and the Chinese group comes at a time when the relationship between China and the USA is tense. However, Meta has been struggling with this for over a decade. Facebook and Twitter (today:
Recently, however, the Biden administration has been causing tensions between the two countries with export restrictions for certain high-end technologies (particularly some chips). The reason for the restrictions is that they want to prevent them from being used in the Chinese military.
Competing with Apple’s Vision Pro
According to the report, Meta plans to integrate cheaper lenses into its headset for the Chinese market compared to the Quest 3. This version should also be available in other markets.
Meta also intends to secure a larger share of device sales, while Tencent would receive a larger share of content and services revenue. The cheaper headset is intended to make games and other apps published by the Chinese company accessible.
The move into the Chinese market comes amid a possible threat from Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which is set to launch early next year, explains Reuters. This headset is aimed at fans and is advertised with a price that is more than three times the most expensive Quest headset from Meta.
Editorial team finanzen.net