According to foreign media reports, from the current situation, the future of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will usher in a new computing revolution. Although the two look very similar, there are some fundamental differences between VR and AR technologies. Among them, VR technology focuses on immersing the user completely in the virtual world, while AR is a virtual technology that superimposes the virtual world into the real world scene.
For these two technologies, many Silicon Valley technology companies also have different views and investment strategies. For example, Facebook is firmly optimistic about VR technology, and previously spent 2 billion US dollars to acquire VR startup Oculus. At the same time, Apple is more optimistic about AR technology, the company believes that AR has greater potential for mainstream users.
In response, IDC, a well-known market research company, recently released the AR and VR market outlook for the next five years. From the IDC report, it seems that this time Facebook was ahead of Apple.
VR is coming to take off
IDC expects that the market size of VR and AR will increase by nearly 10 times in total by 2021, that is, shipments will increase from 10.1 million units in 2016 to 99.4 million units in 2021.
In fact, the past year has been a milestone in the VR/AR market because we saw the official launch of the Oculus helmets and other VR/AR products last year. In the next few years, we expect to see more new content and products coming out, and the reduction in the price of VR/AR peripheral products will stimulate the market demand.
The most typical point is that Facebook just lowered the total retail price of its Oculus Rift and Touch by 200 US dollars this month to 600 US dollars.
In addition, IDC research manager Ramon Llamas said that although the so-called consumer demand was previously mainly driven by technology enthusiasts (mostly gamers), the application of VR/AR technology in the enterprise area is now Increasingly.
At present, most people think that whether AR or VR has great potential in improving work efficiency. This means that companies wishing to join the VR/AR market have a large number of strategic options to position themselves for development to meet different market needs.
However, IDC still expects that consumer demand will still dominate the VR/AR market, followed by corporate customer demand. According to the IDC report, commercial shipments of VR devices to 2021 will increase from 2 million units last year to 38.3 million units, while shipments of VR devices in the consumer market will increase from 8.1 million units to 61.10 million units.
The spring of AR market has not yet arrived
However, IDC's forecast is probably not good news for Apple, which has invested heavily in the AR market. Because the company believes that the AR market will be much smaller than the VR market in the next few years, at least in terms of equipment shipments.
However, although AR's equipment shipments are not comparable to VR, this market is probably not less profitable than the former. This is mainly due to the relative higher price of AR equipment.
Currently, the price of VR devices ranges from US$100 to US$1,000. However, the experience of using low-end devices may be frustrating for users who want to use the devices. On the other hand, AR equipment is more complicated in design, so the price may be much higher than 1,000 US dollars. However, it is obvious that this price will deter many users at an early stage.
It should be pointed out that considering that Apple CEO Tim Cook had previously commented on the potential of AR market, we think that Apple is very likely to develop its own AR equipment in the future, and may even have already discussed it within the company. The prototype of this product. However, before this device is actually launched on the market, Facebook is probably going to be invincible in the VR market.
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