Facebook boasted strong uptake of its Oculus Quest 2 VR headset in Q4 2020, gaining ground in a market executives flagged as a key growth area.

In a blog, VP of Facebook Reality Labs Andrew Bosworth said Oculus Quest 2 was the company’s “fastest-growing VR headset”, surpassing the original Quest’s number of monthly active users “in less than seven weeks” after going on sale in October 2020.

Bosworth added “more people are using it” for fitness, gaming and work collaboration, with more women adopting the device than any previous headset.

Data from App Annie indicated Facebook’s VR products were particularly popular in the festive period, with its Oculus app ranking 18th in US iOS downloads on 25 December 2020.

The executive said in 2021 Facebook will expand VR features for collaboration, productivity and privacy, and also plans to launch the first product from a collaboration with Ray-Ban maker Luxottica.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously placed VR as a key area of investment, noting on its Q3 2020 earnings call it aimed for “10 million active units in our VR systems” and a “sufficiently large” user base to draw independent developers.