What Display Daily Thinks: What would make the market for AR/VR/MR headsets really interesting is if the biggest investor in the market, Zuckerberg’s Meta, did enter the Chinese market with Tencent. That’s a powerful combo to begin with, but considering the number of Chinese companies working on their own variations of devices for the market, it’s a win for the industry.
If this were to happen, it would be bigger news than Apple’s Vision Pro, and the potential would be much, much greater than anything Apple can deliver in the short term.
Zuckerberg Wants Quest Sales in China
The South China Post, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) have all been writing about the increasingly tense relationship between Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), and the Chinese government. It comes in light of a critical opinion piece published by the Beijing Daily, an influential social media account, which lambasted Zuckerberg’s past criticisms of Chinese practices, such as censorship and alleged intellectual property theft.
Zuckerberg has been trying to re-enter the Chinese market ever since Facebook was banned in the country in 2009. He’s made various attempts to curry favor with Chinese authorities, like having a book by Chinese President Xi Jinping visible during a visit from China’s then internet regulator, Lu Wei, or his jog through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Despite these attempts, Facebook remains blocked in China, where foreign social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube are also banned. This has hindered Meta’s access to China’s massive user base of over 1 billion internet users.
Tencent and Quest VR
Recently, Meta has been reportedly in talks with Tencent Holdings, China’s social media and gaming behemoth, to bring its Quest VR headset to the Chinese market. This news has seemingly provoked the Beijing Daily’s critical response, which has been translated as accusing Zuckerberg of having “smashed the China wok” – a metaphor for challenging Beijing’s narrative while trying to profit from the Chinese market.
The Beijing Daily contrasts Zuckerberg’s approach with that of other tech industry leaders like Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla) and Tim Cook (CEO of Apple), who have maintained good relations with Beijing and have had more success in the Chinese market with their products. The Chinese publication also criticized Zuckerberg’s role in lobbying Washington to restrict TikTok, the popular social media app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, and Zuckerberg’s public accusations of China stealing US technologies. According to the South China Post, Zuckerberg’s past actions and criticisms of China are the main reasons for his current challenges in selling Meta’s VR headsets in China.
