Global Shipments of AR and VR Headsets to Reach 76 Million in 2020, Says IDC
Worldwide shipments of augmented and virtual reality headsets are expected to rise at a 108 percent compound annual growth rate through the end of the decade, reaching 76 million units in 2020, IDC said in a Thursday report. More affordable…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
VR devices will continue to lead the market in terms of volume, but AR headsets are expected to pick up momentum as more affordable technologies and more OEMs enter the market, IDC said. It called 2016 a “defining year” for AR as “millions of consumers were introduced to Pokemon Go” and developers “finally got their hands on coveted headsets” like Microsoft's HoloLens. "AR may just be on track to create a shift in computing significant enough to rival the smartphone,” though the technology “is still in its infancy and has a long runway ahead before reaching mass adoption," said the researcher. AR “represents the larger long-term opportunity,” but VR for the near term “will capture the lion's share of shipments and media attention," it said. IDC estimates 10.1 million VR headsets were shipped globally in 2016, and unit volume will grow to 61 million in 2020, said the research firm. It sees unit shipments of AR headsets climbing to 15 million in 2020 from only 100,000 in 2016, it said.