Meta (formerly Facebook) has never officially released any sales figures for any of its virtual reality (VR) headsets but with the Meta Quest 2 dominating the industry maybe it will someday. For the time being, it falls to market intelligence firms like International Data Corporation (IDC) to fill in some of the blanks when it comes to how many units are actually out there. And according to IDC’s latest figures that’s almost 15 million.
.@MetaQuestVR OculusQuest2 is the most successful #VR headset to date. With nearly 15mn units sold since its announcement at @facebook Connect 7 in Sep 2020, the Quest2 has contributed to massive growth in VR sales & consumer adoption
VR Sales grew 97% in 2021 & 242% in 1Q22 pic.twitter.com/7dIe42FSo7
— Francisco Jeronimo (He/Him) (@fjeronimo) June 6, 2022
That’s according to a Twitter post this week from IDC Associate VP of Devices EMEA Francisco Jeronimo, suggesting that 14.8 million Meta Quest 2 units – he does use the old Oculus Quest 2 name – have been sold since its launch in October 2020.
While this will never be confirmed by Meta, it’s probably fair to say that Quest 2 has breached the 10 million marker, an important milestone CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously spoken of. During Facebook’s Q4 2020 earnings call he mentioned that 10 million VR users were needed for a sustainable ecosystem, ensuring VR developers could actually make money.
And a small selection has. Meta has been more open about the revenue generated by content, with the most recent figures coming from earlier this year where 8 games hit the $20 million barrier whilst 14 managed over $10 million. Over 120 titles successfully generated revenue in the millions, which could only be achieved with a headset selling in the millions.
Home VR has certainly benefitted from the pandemic as everyone has been stuck indoors looking for new things to do. As Jeronimo notes in his post, “VR Sales grew 97% in 2021 & 242% in 1Q22” indicating demand continues to increase. With lockdowns now ending for many countries, these figures may drastically change over the next 12 months.
Meta Quest 2 might be dominating VR sales at the moment but Meta isn’t stopping there with a recent report suggesting four more are planned between now and 2024. One, Project Cambria has already been confirmed for this year yet it won’t be a consumer product. The rest? Well, they could be next-gen Quest’s.
As for rivals, those looking for a piece of those Quest 2 sales include the Lynx R1, Pico Neo3 Link, Somnium Space’s standalone and the Simula One, to name a few. For continual updates, keep reading gmw3.