As Meta's metaverse business falters and its headsets face challenges from Apple, the American social media giant is seeking to re-enter the Chinese market by following in the footsteps of Apple and Tesla, and selling its Quest series headsets in China.
According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal, at the end of 2021, Mark Zuckerberg proposed in a video conference, &#34;If Apple can sell iPhones in China and Tesla can sell cars, why can't Meta (then known as Facebook) sell hardware devices there?&#34;
Meta's plan to return to China has made some progress. Reports indicate that starting from the end of 2022, Meta has engaged in discussions with several Chinese tech companies, and it is currently in talks with Tencent, which may become the exclusive distributor of the Meta Quest series headsets in China. Tencent is also expected to develop VR games for the Quest headsets.
The Wall Street Journal report pointed out that at the end of last year, Tencent executives had a heated debate about whether to cooperate with Meta. The decision to negotiate was personally issued by Tencent's founder and chairman, Pony Ma, who said, &#34;Let's see what kind of agreement they can reach.&#34;
The cooperation between the two parties is of great significance to both Meta and Tencent.
Tencent is the world's largest game service provider, with a vast amount of VR game resources available from its studios and invested companies. However, Tencent does not produce VR hardware itself. The Quest headset is a high-quality &#34;training ground&#34; that can be utilized.
Meta can seize this opportunity to enter the vast Chinese market, expand its revenue channels, and gain massive content support from Tencent for the Quest series. However, due to licensing issues, it is expected that the Chinese version of Quest will have restricted content.
Furthermore, Zuckerberg can also have the opportunity to compete with rival ByteDance and grab market share. According to Counterpoint data, in 2022, ByteDance's Pico series headsets accounted for 43% of the shipment volume of domestic VR headsets in China, ranking first.

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Meta Platforms may collaborate with TENCENT, the latter potentially becoming the exclusive distributor for Meta Platforms' Quest headsets and developing VR games.

Entering the Chinese market! Reports suggest that Meta has made progress in cooperation with TENCENT in the field of VR headsets.