VIRTUAL REALITY (VR) HEADSETS MARKET ANALYSIS

Virtual Reality (VR) Headsets MarketSize and Trends

Virtual reality helps enables users to interact with virtual environment with the help of virtual reality content including movies, videos games or a previously recorded 360-degree VR environment. Virtual reality has various applications from aiding in providing a virtual tour of the house to prospect buyers, to watching a football game in immersive augmented reality or interacting with doctors remotely. This is expected to aid in growth of virtual reality industry, in turn increasing demand for virtual reality headset devices.

Increasing demand for smartphones is one of the major driving factors for the market growth

Major factors expected to propel growth of the global VR headsets market is proliferation of mobile devices specifically smartphones, as most VR headsets rely on the smartphone to display content and use various specially developed apps for the same. For instance, Matterport VR Showcase is a virtual reality app compatible with Samsung Galaxy series (Android Kitkat 4.4+) and Oculus Gear VR app needs to be installed on the device. According to Coherent Market Insights analysis, share of headset installed base of Samsung gear VR was around 16.3% globally, and the share of mobile phone based VR headsets were about 87% globally, in 2016. Over 2.56 billion smartphone users were reported worldwide in 2016. Hence, the increasing smartphone sales are further increasing the growth of VR headsets market.

Proliferation of digital entertainment and media segment is expected to drive growth of the global virtual reality headsets market

Increasing utilization of digital entertainment and digital media is expected to accelerate global market growth. For example, film producers, professional sports leagues and associations are increasingly adopting virtual reality technology, in order to increase their customer base. For example, in 2015, the NBA Golden State Warriors experimented with NextVR technology to stream their regular-session for individuals using Samsung Gear headsets. Furthermore, music and adult entertainment segments are also adopting virtual reality technology to produce 3D contents, which is expected to increase their viewers’ base. Moreover, on-demand series providers are also adopting virtual reality technology, in order to enhance consumer experience. For example, in 2016, HBO provides virtual reality 360 degree content for famous series, Game of Thrones. Therefore, increasing demand for virtual reality technology is expected to propel growth of virtual reality headsets market in digital entertainment and media sector.