The modern-day revolution is seeing a lot of things, which one could not have imagined two or three decades ago, turn into reality. Among these are the virtual reality (VR) and the augmented reality (AR). Even though these technologies are still in their early days, according to industry analysts, the headset market is going to expand a lot in the coming years.
13.7 million units of headsets have already been shipped this year, and the amount will grow up to a shocking 81.2 million units by the start of 2021, which shows an annual growth of 56.1%.
The VR market has already taken off, with many mainstream companies venturing into the market. High-profile VR headsets that include Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and the HTC Vive were already put on sale from 2016. On the other hand, the large mobile VR market, that contains headsets powered by smartphones, have also taken off with the Samsung’s Gear VR and various Google Daydream gadgets making it to the shops this year.
On the other hand, AR is still in transition and developing mode, with very less firms into the technology. Microsoft’s HoloLens remains possibly the only well-known AR headset, that you can purchase right now, after the Google Glass project. Moreover, the mysterious Magic Leap and Apple’s ARkit is also making the headlines in the AR market.
AR headsets will gain more revenue in sales by 2021 than VR headsets
VR is a fully hypnotic digital world hidden inside a headset, while AR, or mixed reality, overlaps the digital world over reality. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook has not hidden his praise for AR, naming it a core technology. He further added that AR will be a larger business in the long future than VR.
According to market analysts, VR headsets will take more than 90% of the headset market until 2019, but AR headsets will experience a revolution in the market between 2020 and 2021, with AR grabbing a quarter of the market by the end of that tenure.
A senior researcher and analyst revealed that AR headset shipments are only a little amount of what he expects it to be after a tenure of five years, both with respect to the amount and its functionality.
He further added that AR headsets are on the pathway to make more than $30 billion in sales by 2021, which will be almost twice of the revenue gained by VR. Most of the AR headsets will have a higher average selling price in comparison to VR headsets. Moreover, most consumers will also experience AR on mobile devices, with the Apple ARKit and Google’s ARCore-enabled applications all set to march themselves into the consumer grade headsets.
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