IDC Expands Forecast for Augmented/Virtual Reality Market to $162 Billion by 2020
IDC expanded its forecast for the augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) market, now projecting it will grow from $5.2 billion this year to more than $162 billion in 2020, said an IDC news release Monday. With smartphones powering inexpensive…
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VR headsets, the consumer market is primed for new paid and user-generated content-driven experiences, and recent developments show AR headsets will have an impact in healthcare, education, logistics and manufacturing, said IDC. "The rise of new, less expensive hardware will put virtual and augmented reality technology within the grasp of a growing number of companies and individuals," said IDC analyst Tom Mainelli. IDC expects developers to create new experiences for AR and VR devices that will “fundamentally change the way many of us do work." Hardware sales will generate more than half of worldwide AR/VR revenue during the forecast period, and software revenue will get off to a quick start and then be overtaken by services revenue as logistics and manufacturing call for enterprise-class support, IDC said. Revenue for VR systems, including viewers, software, consulting services and systems integration services, is forecast to be bigger than AR-related revenue in 2016 and 2017, due to consumer uptake of games and paid content, IDC said. After 2017, AR revenue will surge ahead, hitting critical mass in healthcare delivery and product design and management-related use cases, it said.