Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms is partnering with Tencent Holdings to bring its Quest 2 VR headset to Chinese consumers.
Tencent’s extended reality (XR) team has been working with Meta on the collaboration for four months.
A distribution deal with Tencent would allow Meta to make inroads into the Chinese consumer market, which founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long hoped to break into.
Facebook remains blocked in China along with other Western internet services, although it continues to run an advertising business in the country.
Meta Quest 2 is currently the world’s bestselling VR headset but it faces increased competition from ByteDance’s Pico, which held around 15% of the global market in the third quarter of 2022, while Meta’s share fell to 75% from 90%.
Tencent had wanted to acquire Chinese gaming smartphone maker Black Shark, with the intention of pivoting the team to producing VR headsets for metaverse-related content, but it backed out of the deal last year after failing to obtain approval from the government.
Tencent said it was changing its XR strategy and making adjustments to its team, while denying reports that the company was dissolving the unit.
Pico, which was acquired by ByteDance in 2021, is conducting a round of layoffs expected to affect hundreds of employees, with some teams trimmed by as much as 30%.
