TikTok owner may fire metaverse division employees, says Chinese newspaper

After Tencent admitted problems with the metaverse and announced the dismissal of employees dedicated to virtual reality, Bytedance, owner of TikTok, will also fire employees from the division that develops a headset for the metaverse. According to the newspaper 'South China Morning Post', some company groups could lose 30% of their employees with these layoffs. Even higher-level positions can suffer the consequences.

Posted by

Uesley Durães

March 3, 2023 13:38

O cold water bath in Pico, a division of Bytedance dedicated to the development of hardware and metaverse solutions, comes after another Chinese technology giant, Tencent, admitted problems with the current market situation. In theory, shortly after the launch of Pico, Bytedance reported optimism with the virtual reality market, as months after the initiative the company captured 15% of the headset market in Asia. At the time, Pico CEO Henry Zhou said he expected to sell more than a million units of the brand's headset.

virtual reality glasses from Pico, Bytedance's VR arm. (Pico Playback)

TikTok owner was not the only one to admit problems with the metaverse

Chinese giant Tencent abandons plans for virtual reality hardware; understand

The Chinese technology giant, Tencent, announced on Friday (17) that it will put aside the development of virtual reality hardware. The information, confirmed by Reuters, throws cold water on metaverse enthusiasts around the world, who perceive yet another consolidated company in the sector abandoning, at least for now, metaverse tools.

The ambition remains, but the strategy must change. With this new series of cuts and the discredit with the moment of the metaverse, the owner of TikTok could lose even more market share to Meta in the virtual reality scenario, even with all the difficulties, the North American company is still at the forefront of the economy metaversonic.

It is worth remembering that layoffs do not just happen in the Asian scenario. We have already reported on Newsverse than other North American giants, such as Meta and Microsoft are having trouble sustaining their metaverse plans.

The virtual reality center is the most affected by the layoffs Microsoft

This week the news that technology giants are laying off thousands of people scared the world. With the Microsoft It's no different, the North American company plans to close 10 jobs, according to the Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC). However, in addition to the mass layoffs, the fact that the majority of those fired were from the company's virtual reality core shocks metaverse enthusiasts.

This post was last modified on March 3, 2023 15:11 pm

Uesley Durães