Virus outbreak depresses sales in VR/AR headset market

It seems illogical and yet: IDC assumes that the market for augmented reality and virtual reality headsets will suffer massively from the corona virus in the first half of the year. However, the analysts are already predicting a recovery for the second half of the year.

The coronavirus outbreak is also causing negative effects for the augmented reality and virtual reality headset market, at least in the near future. Market analysts at IDC predict that sales in the first quarter will be 10.5 per cent lower than in the same period last year and that the decline in sales in Q2 will rise to 24.1 per cent.

In the long term, things are supposed to go uphill

Assuming that production will pick up again in the summer, IDC expects the AR/VR headset market to recover in the second half of the year and that close to 7.1 million devices will then be sold. If the forecast proves to be true, a remarkably high growth rate of 23.6 percent would be achieved in the second half of the year. In the long term, exorbitantly high growth rates are still predicted for this market segment. IDC expects sales to reach a volume of 76.7 million units in 2024, which would then correspond to an average annual growth rate of 81.5 percent.

As in previous studies, IDC continues to assume that the market will shift towards augmented reality headsets. These currently have a market share of less than 10 per cent, while VR headsets account for the lion's share of almost 85 per cent. According to the current forecast, the AR share is expected to rise to over 53 per cent by 2024, while the VR share will decline to just over 46 per cent.

VR against boredom

Actually, one would have to assume that this is exactly the time for VR. People have to stay at home, can't travel to beautiful places and many are bored after just one week, as so many posts show. VR would be the optimal solution to go wherever you want. However, large manufacturing factories in China have already been temporarily closed by the government since the beginning of the year, which of course has an impact on the manufacturing of western tech products. For example, Facebook announced supply shortages for Oculus Quest back in February. So those who already have equipment can consider themselves lucky.

Source: itreseller / Mixed