This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, has been frustrated for the last 15 years by having to play by Apple's and Alphabet's rules on iOS and Android.
Meta's first attempt to circumvent the duo's smartphone dominance, the Facebook phone, ended as a dismal failure in 2013. But the company's second bite at the apple has a much better chance of working.
Here is how Meta Platforms plans to disrupt the two smartphone empires.
Love at first sight
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg first formed the seed of a plan to topple the iOS and Android empires after Google co-founder Sergey Brin introduced him to a Google Glass prototype on the sidelines of an awards ceremony. The Glass project was Google's first attempt at augmented reality (AR), a technology that superimposes computer-generated visual content on a user's view of the real world via a set of glasses. And Zuckerberg's first look at Glass was love at first sight.
Once Zuckerberg got a pair and took a closer look at what the technology could do, it wasn't long before he visualized his company creating its own smart glasses hardware platform, where it would be free from following other companies' rules.
The platform of tomorrow
Facebook missed the birth of the mobile phone era. But once it was clear that the world was near the dawn of new computing technology, Zuckerberg began making aggressive bets.
His first bet was the acquisition of Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. It was a promising small company developing virtual reality (VR), an interactive computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional environment. When the company first announced the Oculus acquisition, Zuckerberg was quick to say that mobile is today's platform, but the company was getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow.
Meta is relatively early in its VR opportunity, with massive growth ahead. Fortune Business Insights projects the global VR market to grow from $16.67 billion in 2022 to $227.34 billion by 2029, a compound annual growth rate of 45.2%.
Zuckerberg has an AR vision, too
While VR should grow into a massive market over the next decade, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a 2016 interview with ABC News that he favors AR over VR and believes AR will eventually be the larger of the two.
You might then wonder why Zuckerberg did not pursue AR first. The answer is that VR technology was much further ahead than AR toward becoming a viable consumer product in 2014.
But in 2022, industry analysts believe the AR market is geared to take off. Market research company Insider Intelligence projects that this country's AR market will grow to 89.4 million users by the end of 2022 and reach 100 million users in 2025 -- 35.5% of all U.S. internet users.
And at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, CNBC reported that Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark believes that smart glasses will replace smartphones by 2030, a growing belief among some tech executives. Should that occur, it could potentially end the iOS and Android chokehold on wireless mobile technology, a desirable scenario for Meta.
Consequently, Zuckerberg's second bet is heavy investment in AR. Meta's division that develops AR and VR products, Reality Labs, began introducing AR products in 2021. It started with Ray-Ban Stories, a limited-feature smart glass produced in collaboration with the EssilorLuxottica brand Ray-Ban. Users can take pictures and videos, listen to music, and take phone calls with these glasses.
Its full-featured AR is named Project Nazare, which will likely take many years to develop into a finished product. According to tech news website The Information, Meta wanted to release its first consumer version of Nazare in 2024. But it has since scrapped those plans, likely because of the souring global economy.
A cloudy short-term picture
In May, Reuters reported that Meta's chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth told Reality Labs employees that it would not be able to afford some projects and that the company could postpone other projects. And things have only gotten worse since May.
Meta's second-quarter total revenue declined 1% year over year due to unfavorable foreign exchange rates, the war in Ukraine, Apple's iOS changes, weakness in e-commerce, and a sour economy. And Reality Labs had an operating loss of $2.8 billion in the quarter. Should the economy worsen, management could decide on further cutbacks. So there are reasons to avoid Meta's stock, which include rumors that Apple will start releasing its AR/VR products in 2023, potentially jumping ahead of Meta.
However, Meta's shares now trade at a trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 11.6, close to a historic low -- compensating investors for taking some risk. So if you are a long-term investor who believes in Zuckerberg's vision, now might be a great time to grab a few shares. If the company successfully creates a smart-glass platform, today's valuation could look low 10 years from now.
This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
