According to a report published by International Data Corporation (IDC), forecasts worldwide revenues for the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) market to reach $13.9 USD billion in 2017, an increase of 130.5% over the $6.1 billion spent in 2016. This is in-part a result of aggressive price cuts on behalf of Oculus VR and HTC Vive, as well as a promotional effort from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) which saw the PlayStation VR’s ‘Black Friday’ sales receive a significant boost.
According to IDC’s report, the increased expenditure on AR/VR won’t end with this holiday season. The market is expected to accelerate over the next several years, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 198.0% over the 2015-2020 forecast period and totalling $143.3 billion in 2020. The report also explains that the consumer market will be the largest AR/VR segment throughout the forecast period with worldwide spending on hardware, software, and services expected to reach $6.2 billion in 2017, an increase of 130.5% over 2016.
“AR and VR headsets get most of the media attention right now, but the hardware is only as good as the software and services running on it,” said Tom Mainelli, program vice president, Devices and AR/VR, at IDC. “On the virtual reality side, producers are quickly moving beyond games to create new content mainstream audiences will embrace. And on the augmented reality side of the fence we’re seeing commercial entities begin to more seriously evaluate the technology and begin to test the waters of app development.”
Vuzix Corporation, an AR specialist delivering smartglasses to enterprise and industrial clients, has expanded operations to 11 countries in an effort focused on industrial networking and remote management solutions. The Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses allow operators and maintenance workers that are already required to wear safety goggles to utilise the Vuzix M300’s high-resolution camera to record video of events and provide photo documentation of issues completed tasks completely hands-free.
“From the first majority to the next man in we continue to see the shift in the industry IoT strategy to introduce proven hands-free mobile devices like the Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses to machine operators and maintenance workers to provide remote HMI access to equipment in the field,” said Paul Boris, COO, Vuzix.
More information about IDC’s research can be found on the company’s official website, and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on the AR and VR markets.
via Mint VR