Peloton-Like VR Experience Could Be Next

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes Peloton-like fitness subscriptions could become an essential part of the virtual reality experience.

“Think about it like Peloton, where you have a subscription, but instead the device is VR and you’re doing a boxing class or a dance class,” said Zuckerberg on Thursday at the VivaTech conference in Paris. 

The 37-year-old Facebook co-founder — and the fifth-wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $119.5 billion — spoke about the potential of VR and augmented reality.

“It’s quickly expanding beyond games,” Zuckerberg added. “We think that this is eventually going to be a big part of the next major computing platform after phones and after PCs.”

The VR market is expected to reach $57.55 billion by 2027. In 2019, the market size was $3.10 billion. 

Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm about expanding Facebook’s footprint in VR comes as no surprise. 

• Facebook purchased VR headset maker Oculus Studios for $2 billion in 2014. 
• Last week, Facebook acquired BigBox VR, a VC-backed startup that creates VR video games. 
• Facebook announced it will test advertisements inside Oculus headsets. The ads will first appear in “Blaston,” a multiplayer action title from Resolution Games. 
• Eyewear giant Ray-Ban and Facebook partnered to launch a pair of connected glasses by the end of this year. 

Facebook generated $26.17 billion in revenue in Q1 2021, a 48% increase year-over-year. The tech giant counts nearly four billion users between Facebook and Instagram alone.