Facebook owner Meta has been going through a tough year, and that resulted in the company lightening the load and several areas. As a result of this, Meta has halted production of its smartwatches and Portal smart displays.
Just recently, the company had to lay off an enormous 11,000 employees. That’s about 13% of its entire workforce, and it’s more than several big companies even have. That’s nearly twice the entire Twitter workforce before its own massive job cut.
This massive layoff came about because Meta’s stock plummeted more than 70% this year, and it’s hemorrhaging money. The company has been burning through money on the Metaverse, and Apple cut off its access to iPhone customer data, which was a massive revenue stream for the company.
Now, Meta has halted its Portal and smartwatch production
Along with cutting people, Meta is also cutting projects and products, according to Reuters. One of which is the Portal smart display. While not as ubiquitous as Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest displays, the Meta Portal display was able to gain a little bit of traction.
Along with that, Meta has also haltered production on its smartwatch development. This is a product that never made it to the public, and we’ve only seen concepts in renders of it.
We’re not quite sure when the company planned on launching it, but now, Meta’s smartwatch is on the cutting room floor.
At this point, things are uncertain for Meta, as the company is trying to pick up the pieces of its once-proud empire. That’s going to be a tough thing to do given the circumstances. Not only is the company hampered by Apple cutting it off from iPhone users’ data, but the company has to contend with the current economic crisis.
This is what’s causing several tech companies to struggle. The world is still rebuilding itself after the Coronavirus pandemic, and that will take years. But it is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, so there may be hope for it. Only time will tell.
2022-11-14 15:05:50