VR headsets to shift 30 million units a year by 2027, vastly behind wearables
(2023/09/23)
- Reference: 1695455408
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/09/23/idc_vr_wearables_predictions/
- Source link:
Analyst firm IDC has forecast strong growth for virtual reality headwear, but even stronger growth for more modest wearables, with the latter to vastly outsell the former for years to come.
But before shipments of VR kit grow, vendors have to deal with a horror 2023 in which the analysts last week [1]found quantities of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets dropped by 44.6 percent year-over-year during calendar Q2.
"Downward pressure from the global economy has curbed demand while the negative impact of a price hike on the popular Quest 2 headset combined with aging hardware from multiple vendors to further hobble growth in this market," the market researcher found.
[2]
Across all of 2023, IDC expects 8.5 million headsets will ship, not many more than vendors moved during 2017.
[3]
[4]
IDC expects 2024 to be a better year for head-mounted kit, with 46.8 percent year over year growth driven by new hardware from Meta and ByteDance, as well as by the debut of Apple's Vision Pro.
[5]How to ask Facebook's Meta to not train its AI models on some of your personal info
[6]What do we make of the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro? It doesn't take a magic leap to guess
[7]Meta virtual reality interrupted by financial reality as thousands lose their jobs
[8]Microsoft's HoloLens 2 surprisingly still a thing, will get Windows 11 treatment
By 2027, the market is expected to reach 30.3 million units globally.
That's a whole lot of headwear.
But it's also 350 million units fewer than the "earwear" sub-category of the wearables market, which IDC [9]found already shifts 320 million a year and will grow to 380 million by 2027.
[10]
In the same year, IDC expects 211.4 million smartwatches to ship, plus 29.4 million smart wristbands.
Do the math: around 620 million wearables will ship in 2027, compared to 30 million VR/AR devices.
Clearly, VR will not have gone mainstream in 2027. Again. And despite Apple entering the market.
[11]
But IDC does see some new brands going mainstream in the wearables market.
"Most consumers think of popular brands like Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit when it comes to wearables, and they would be correct," said Ramon T Llamas, research director with IDC's Wearables team.
"But driving growth are numerous smaller companies that may not have the global aspirations as the market leaders, but instead focus on specific geographies such as China and India with fully featured devices that meet price expectations.
"Looking ahead, it isn't too hard to imagine some of these brands being mentioned in the same breath as the world's most popular ones, or to imagine moving into adjacent markets where pent-up demand has yet to be fully satisfied." ®
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[1] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51252823
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZQ63QIGBPGrMHVGHg-4kZQAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/31/meta_personal_data/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/apple_ar_kettle/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/meta_layoffs/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/17/microsoft_hololens_windows_11/
[9] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51253823
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZQ63QIGBPGrMHVGHg-4kZQAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
But before shipments of VR kit grow, vendors have to deal with a horror 2023 in which the analysts last week [1]found quantities of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets dropped by 44.6 percent year-over-year during calendar Q2.
"Downward pressure from the global economy has curbed demand while the negative impact of a price hike on the popular Quest 2 headset combined with aging hardware from multiple vendors to further hobble growth in this market," the market researcher found.
[2]
Across all of 2023, IDC expects 8.5 million headsets will ship, not many more than vendors moved during 2017.
[3]
[4]
IDC expects 2024 to be a better year for head-mounted kit, with 46.8 percent year over year growth driven by new hardware from Meta and ByteDance, as well as by the debut of Apple's Vision Pro.
[5]How to ask Facebook's Meta to not train its AI models on some of your personal info
[6]What do we make of the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro? It doesn't take a magic leap to guess
[7]Meta virtual reality interrupted by financial reality as thousands lose their jobs
[8]Microsoft's HoloLens 2 surprisingly still a thing, will get Windows 11 treatment
By 2027, the market is expected to reach 30.3 million units globally.
That's a whole lot of headwear.
But it's also 350 million units fewer than the "earwear" sub-category of the wearables market, which IDC [9]found already shifts 320 million a year and will grow to 380 million by 2027.
[10]
In the same year, IDC expects 211.4 million smartwatches to ship, plus 29.4 million smart wristbands.
Do the math: around 620 million wearables will ship in 2027, compared to 30 million VR/AR devices.
Clearly, VR will not have gone mainstream in 2027. Again. And despite Apple entering the market.
[11]
But IDC does see some new brands going mainstream in the wearables market.
"Most consumers think of popular brands like Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit when it comes to wearables, and they would be correct," said Ramon T Llamas, research director with IDC's Wearables team.
"But driving growth are numerous smaller companies that may not have the global aspirations as the market leaders, but instead focus on specific geographies such as China and India with fully featured devices that meet price expectations.
"Looking ahead, it isn't too hard to imagine some of these brands being mentioned in the same breath as the world's most popular ones, or to imagine moving into adjacent markets where pent-up demand has yet to be fully satisfied." ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51252823
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZQ63QIGBPGrMHVGHg-4kZQAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/31/meta_personal_data/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/apple_ar_kettle/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/meta_layoffs/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/17/microsoft_hololens_windows_11/
[9] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51253823
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZQ63QIGBPGrMHVGHg-4kZQAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZQ63QIGBPGrMHVGHg-4kZQAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Magical thinking and hype factory
b0llchit
Nice report you got there, who paid for it?
In all the past years VR has not been the huge success everybody hoped. And now, magically, within four years, the shipments of kit will almost quadruple? Do they know of the killer-app that a) nobody can live without and b) will pay an arm and a leg for to become part of?
Yeah, right.
Still too expensive
Andy Non
for general use. I've been a keen gamer since the days of the original DOS based Doom. I'm now retired and recently treated myself to a Playstation 5 with VR2 headset and controllers. Been playing Horizon Call of the Mountain which is fantastic in 3D game play. However, the setup cost over a grand, and there aren't that many VR games out there yet, making it a bit of a luxury. Can't see it becoming mainstream until the price comes down and there are more games available for it.
Gimme what they're smoking!
These predictions have been made every few years since the early 1990s and despite society generally getting further dumbed down in the meantime, there's no way they're going to deliver that many units unless they start giving them away.