Vive is massively outselling the Rift. Considering Oculus were first to market (in the sense that the dev kits were openly sold), and considering that they ostensibly have the backing of Facebook, that seems like a bad sign.
And given this, it's concerning (to me) that they're now seemingly shifting resources to AR.
And as I said before, AR and VR's uses don't overlap. So it isn't like they need to get a foothold in AR to stay relevant.
Oculus doesn't have to make money immediately since they're backed by Facebook, which is a huge leverage.
Also even if Vive IS outselling Rift right now, doesn't mean Rift is doomed at all. For now it's enough for them to be in the market and look for opportunities since NONE of the VR companies are turning out to be the next big thing, yet.
I'm sure there will come a point when VR will grow extremely fast, but VR itself as an industry is not growing too fast anyway.
In this climate it's best to hunker down and do research instead of trying to sell as many devices as possible, so I think they're doing the right thing.
That's an interesting interpretation which doesn't seem to be backed by reality.
That aside: It's a research team. They think AR will overtake VR some time in the future, so they research on it.