Tim Cook, CEO of tech giant Apple, has hinted that the metaverse has arrived on his radar and that the company exploring the technology.
In Apple’s latest earnings call, a Morgan Stanley representative asked Cook if he was “thinking about the Metaverse opportunity and Apple's role in that market.”
Cook said:
“Well, that's a big question, but we're a company in the businesses innovation so we're always exploring new and emerging technologies and I've spoken at length about how it's very interesting to us right now. We have over 14,000 AR Kit apps in the App Store which provide incredible AR experiences for millions of people today. So we see a lot of potential in this space and are investing accordingly.”
In a potential reaction to Cook’s words, Apple’s stock spiked in after hours trading, though APPL has mostly closed the gap since today’s open.
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Cook’s hints are only the latest in a wave of tech giants eyeing up the metaverse.
Earlier in the month, Microsoft purchased gaming titan Activision for $95 a share in a $69 billion cash deal. In a statement, Microsoft said the acquisition was meant to “accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse.”
Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella said “Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms.”
Meanwhile, social media giant Facebook dedicated an entire rebrand to the metaverse, changing its name to ‘Meta’ and putting a huge focus on the blossoming space. According to Business Insider, Meta has almost made $3 billion in sales on its new metaverse.
In July, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:
“We will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.”
