Category: International Data Corporation (IDC)

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VR Industry Sees Positive Growth as Q3 Headset Sales Hit 1.9 million

It’s no secret that the virtual reality (VR) industry can be tough to make money in, after all, it is still a fledgeling market finding its place in both the overall tech industry and the videogame industry. While recent quarters saw a decline in headset sales, a new report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) has shown a resurgence, with the market returning to growth in Q3 2018.

PlayStation VR Group shot

According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker the combined VR and augmented reality (AR) market grew 9.4 percent year over year in Q3, with global shipments of VR headset hitting 1.9 million units in that quarter.

Thanks to the release of Oculus Go and Xiaomi’s Mi VR, standalone headset sales grew 428.6 percent and accounted for 20.6 percent of the VR headset market, shipping nearly 250,000 devices worldwide. On the flipside, Samsung’s Gear VR declined by 58.6 percent attributed to fewer offers being available.

As for the tethered VR market sales surpassed 1 million units, with Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) shipping 463,000 PlayStation VR headsets during the quarter followed by Oculus Rift with 300,000 and HTC Vive with 230,000. Oculus is the top manufacturer for Q3 thanks to combined Oculus Rift and Oculus Go units capturing 25.9 percent of the entire VR market.

HTC Vive stock image 6“The VR market is finally starting to come into its own,” said Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers in a statement. “On the consumer front, the combination of lower prices and increased content is beginning to resonate with users. Meanwhile, commercial adoption is also on the rise for a range of use cases, including training, design, and showcasing.”

On the AR headset side Lenovo is doing the best with 23,000 headsets shipped, mostly comprised of the Star Wars Jedi Challenges headset. When it comes to the rest of the AR market this grew 1.1 percent over the previous year thanks to companies like Vuzix and Epson.

“The VR market is entering a new stage of maturity, where companies are setting aside the unrealistic expectations around explosive market growth and are focused instead on building more sustainable businesses,” said Tom Mainelli, program vice president, Devices and Augmented and Virtual Reality at IDC. “With regards to AR, hardware growth remains modest, but we see strong interest in the technology from many companies. We expect new hardware shipping in 2019, from both established players and new ones, to help move the industry beyond proof of concepts and pilots into larger deployments.”

With mostly positive figures all round it’ll be interesting to see how Q4 fairs thanks to aggressive pricing around events like Black Friday. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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IDC Predicts That The Rise of AR Headsets Is Still A Way Off

Despite gains in the area of enterprise and industry, augmented reality (AR) headsets and smart glasses have not become the universal product that Google and many other analysts envisioned when the Google Glass was first launched. While the technology has made significant strides since then, the International Data Corporation (IDC) still think that AR headsets have some work to do before they hit widespread adoption.

According to the report from IDC, the progress and growth of AR headsets continues to be outpaced by the rise of AR on smartphones and tablet devices and as a result IDC have adjusted its forecast to push growth for AR headsets further out.

Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers said:”Apple’s ARKit has continued to improve the fidelity of AR experiences on iOS devices, Google’s ARCore is becoming available on more Android devices, and third-party SDK vendors such as 8th Wall and PTC continue to drive innovation in the space.”

Most consumer AR apps are designed with smartphones and tablets in mind, though commercial applications for AR is driving demand for both standalone and tethered AR headsets. IDC expects that AR headsets will surpass the 1 million park by 2020, which will act as a tipping point after which growth will increase drastically.

“AR headset growth may seem muted, but it’s still very early days in this market,” said Tom Mainelli, vice president of Devices & AR/VR at IDC. “Right now we’re seeing vendors build out enterprise-focused software for the devices available today with an eye toward the new features that will become available in future iterations of hardware. Things will get very interesting from a volume and capability perspective in the months to come.”

Toshiba dynaEdge AR SmartGlasses

Further information on the IDC report is available at the official company website. For future coverage from the VR and AR industry, keep checking back with VRFocus.