With President’s Day a keepsake and Memorial Day still months away, the time for deeply discounted electronics is a little long. But don’t tell the meta platforms (NASDAQ: META), which plans to launch a substantial price drop on two of its best virtual reality headsets.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg clarified the reasoning: he wants more people to get into virtual reality and, by extension, the metaverse. Therefore, he will lower the price to obtain the equipment—or rather a part of the equipment—necessary to make such a move. With the price drops in place, the 256 gigabyte Quest 2 model will drop to $429, while the Quest Pro will drop to $999. Some have already postulated that this decision is a good plan to get rid of excess inventory. However, there’s no sign of any follow-up hardware coming any time soon.
This, in turn, casts doubt on the concept of excess inventory. Worse still, Meta’s pricing on its VR lineup is simply baffling. For example, the 128 gigabyte version of the Quest 2 does not benefit from any price reduction; instead, it had a price hike in August. But with the 256GB price drop, it now costs around $30 more than the 128GB version. This comes as a result of huge layoffsso it’s easy to ask how much of this is a move to drum up interest and how much of it is sheer desperation.
Regardless of bizarre pricing schemes, analysts are very supportive of Meta. The analyst consensus calls it a strong buy, with 35 analysts offering buy recommendations against six holds and two sells. Meta-stock also offers Upside potential of 16.17% thanks to its average price target of $215.20.