While virtual reality seems to be in early stage and out of reach to most of the consumers, predictions are high from this market. Research firm Strategy Analytics has predicted that the sales of global virtual reality headset will reach to USD 895 million this year.
For past few months, we have been seeing a lot about virtual reality. Google’s low-cost cardboard VR headset made it affordable for customers and helps them to check VR content without spending much. Recently, few websites also offer free Google cardboard VR for free to their viewers. Oculus Rift was launched for $600 and HTC Vive is on the way for $799. Sony is also working to bring VR headset later this year for $399. Pornhub also added a VR section to offer porn in VR. Today, Karbonn launched the VR-focused smartphone and VR headset. Lenovo already brought a VR headset for its K4 Note. LeEco also showcased its VR which will come in next few months.
All these recent, launches and announcements confirm that virtual reality will soon be a part of our life. Video games and porn will be the early driver for VR headset sales. VR will soon be an important part of the entertainment, marketing and product retailing, and education and training industry.
If we take a look at the report, it claims that Facebook’s Oculus, HTC and Sony will account for 77 percent of revenues while only making up 13 percent of unit shipments. This is because of the high price. Remaining 87% shipments will be taken up by cheaper VR headsets that use smartphone as the display.
The report predicts that mobile phone based virtual reality headsets will have around 87% market share in terms of volume but game console based VR headsets will have around 46% value share.
Google cardboard VR headset are cheaper and use the smartphone as the display. These can be bought for as less as $2. If you are not sure about virtual reality experience, you can buy this cheaper headset before buying a good highly priced VR headset.
