A report from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker has found that shipments of AR and VR headsets was down from last year, but the IDC report also predicts a resurgence of sales in the near future.
The report showed that shipments of VR and AR headsets were down 30.5% year over year, totalling 1.2 million units in the first quarter of 2018.
As reported by The Register, experts at IDC predicts that sales will recover for several reasons. The report points out that companies such as Samsung were bundling headsets like the Samsung Gear VR along with its smartphones in order to promote the VR market. With this practice has now largely dwindled, the number of headsets shipped as declined.
The seconds reason for an expected recovery is the launch of the Oculus Go, which offers the convenience of portability along with a reasonable price tag, which will no doubt promote a surge in demand.
As other experts have pointed out, the VR market is now maturing, and an increasing amount of content is appearing as accessible tools for content creation are being launched. IDC said it: “Believes the commercial market to be equally important and predicts it will grow from 24 per cent of VR headset shipments in 2018 to 44.6 per cent by 2022.”
IDC believe that some of the future growth in demand for VR and AR headsets will be largely driven by businesses and enterprise-level applications such as employee training and remote collaboration.
According to IDC, there will be good news in future for headset manufacturers, with shipments of VR headset expected: “To grow from 8.1 million in 2018 to 39.2 million by the end of 2022, representing a five-year CAGR of 48.1 per cent.”
For further news from the VR and AR industry, keep checking back with VRFocus.