IDC expects Meta to lose its dominance in VR
Meta will lose its dominant share of the VR market in the coming years.

The VR industry is growing rapidly. During Q1 2022, global shipments of VR headsets increased by 241.6 percent compared to the same period last year.

Meta continues to dominate the market thanks to the success of its Quest 2 headset. According to IDC, Meta now occupies 90 percent of the market. According to IDC, Meta’s biggest competitor right now is ByteDance Pico; despite having a 4.5 percent market share. ByteDance’s expansion outside of China into European markets is expected to help attract a larger audience “in the coming quarters.”

Other rivals – including HTC, DPVR and iQIYI – rounded out the top five VR companies, but together they have less than four percent of the market share.

One of the reasons for Meta’s success is the attractive price of Quest headsets compared to competitors. However, to achieve these prices and attract new users, Meta subsidizes hardware and offers exclusive content.

“Meta continues to pour dollars into meta development, but the strategy of promoting cheap hardware at the expense of profit is unsustainable in the long term,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager of IDC Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. “The good news is that Meta’s upcoming productivity-focused headset will serve as a starting point to steer the company toward higher revenue-generating hardware, as well as help drive end-user pricing above the industry average retail price.” and technology has improved dramatically. .”

VR headset shipments are expected to continue to grow in 2022, reaching 13.9 million, up 26.6 percent from last year.

Next-generation headsets are expected to launch in 2023 from Meta, Pico, Sony and others. However, it is Apple that has entered the market with a mixed reality headset that is expected to take the market by storm.

“All eyes will be on Apple when it launches its first headset next year, and while it’s tempting to imagine the company shipping huge volumes, remember that this is the first headset to appeal to a rather small crowd of early adopters and Apple fans. ” said Ramon Llamas, research director of the Augmented and Virtual Reality team at IDC.

“Further revisions will likely show that evolution is growing by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, companies like Meta and Sony have a strong installed base and pent-up demand that they can take advantage of.