Global VR Market Declines 12% YoY in 2024; ‘AR+AI’ Smart Glasses to Take Centre Stage in 2025
www.counterpointresearch.com
Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, marking their third consecutive year of declines due to the continued weak consumer demand.Meta continued to dominate the global VR market in 2024, capturing 77% of the shipments.In Q4 2024, the availability of the Meta Quest 3S boosted Meta’s market share to 84%.Shipments of Apple’s Vision Pro declined in Q4 after the initial hype. However, its enterprise sales saw an uptick.The global AR smart glasses market faced challenges in 2024, but we expect that the integration of AR and AI, along with new market entrants, will drive over 30% YoY growth in shipments through 2026.Seoul, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Fort Collins, Hong Kong, London, New Delhi, Taipei, Tokyo – March 18, 2025Global virtual reality (VR) headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, the market’s third consecutive year of declines, according to the latest update from Counterpoint’s Global XR (AR/VR) Headset Model Tracker. In Q4 2024, the shipments fell 5% YoY. Hardware limitations, lack of compelling VR content and usage scenarios, and decreased consumer engagement continued to impact the market. However, demand from the enterprise market, though relatively limited in size, remained more resilient, particularly in large-scale immersive Location-Based Entertainment (LBE), education, healthcare and military.Meta continued to dominate the global VR headset market in 2024 with a share of 77%. In Q4 2024, Meta’s market share rose to 84% primarily due to the launch of the more affordable Quest 3S headset. Sony’s PSVR2 shipment share surged to 9% in Q4 2024, fuelled by aggressive promotions and discounts during the Black Friday and Christmas sales. Apple’s Vision Pro shipments saw a steep 43% QoQ decline in Q4 2024, reflecting a slowdown after the initial market hype. In Q4, Apple expanded the Vision Pro’s availability to new markets, including South Korea, UAE and Taiwan, which helped partially offset the overall decline. The device’s enterprise sales also saw an uptick.Chinese OEMs Pico and DPVR also benefited from the growing enterprise market demand in 2024. For Pico, shipments to the enterprise segment surpassed those to the consumer segment, while DPVR saw over 30% YoY shipment growth in 2024, driven by its strong focus on enterprise customers.According to our projections, the global VR market’s growth will remain limited over the next two years. Despite the potential of spatial computing, significant challenges persist, including a lack of compelling content beyond entertainment, eye fatigue from prolonged use, and the ongoing trade-offs between performance, headset weight, battery life and heat dissipation. Until more substantial technological advancements are achieved, the global VR market’s growth is likely to face challenges.The global AR smart glasses market also faced challenges in 2024, experiencing an 8% YoY decline. Birdbath-based video-watching AR smart glasses remained the dominant category, growing 27% YoY in 2024. In contrast, waveguide-based information display glasses saw a sharp 67% YoY decline, primarily due to weak INMO product sales.However, we expect the global AR smart glasses market to rebound in 2025, achieving over 30% YoY growth through 2026, driven by the potential entry of major tech giants and the accelerating momentum of the ‘AR+AI’ trend. As generative AI technologies advance, an increasing number of companies are positioning AR smart glasses as a key platform for AI integration, driving further market expansion. Besides, Google’s introduction of Android XR OS, designed to support existing Android apps and seamlessly integrate with its suite of large AI models, is expected to unlock new use cases and further propel the growth of the AR smart glasses market.BackgroundCounterpoint Technology Market Research is a global research firm specializing in products in the TMT (technology, media, and telecom) industry. It services major technology and financial firms with a mix of monthly reports, customized projects, and detailed analyses of the mobile and technology markets. Its key analysts are seasoned experts in the high-tech industry.Follow Counterpoint Researchpress@counterpointresearch.com
  • Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, marking their third consecutive year of declines due to the continued weak consumer demand.
  • Meta continued to dominate the global VR market in 2024, capturing 77% of the shipments.
  • In Q4 2024, the availability of the Meta Quest 3S boosted Meta’s market share to 84%.
  • Shipments of Apple’s Vision Pro declined in Q4 after the initial hype. However, its enterprise sales saw an uptick.
  • The global AR smart glasses market faced challenges in 2024, but we expect that the integration of AR and AI, along with new market entrants, will drive over 30% YoY growth in shipments through 2026.
  • WormFood@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 hours ago

    in my opinion the market is too segmented. Facebook took Oculus and refocused them onto standalone vr instead of pcvr, and secluded away a bunch of releases as Oculus exclusives. psvr is in a similar state. there isn’t enough vr software being made to support two separate walled gardens plus steamvr. in their rush to establish a vr monopoly, Facebook killed it. that’s my opinion

    I’ll be hanging onto my vive cosmos for occasional games of beat saber but I think vr at this point has become an expensive novelty

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      but I think vr at this point has become an expensive novelty

      Always has been. I went to demonstrations of this tech in the nineties when I was in college. It was going to be the next big thing. That never happened. It seems to come back every few years and then fade out again.

      • kemsat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 minutes ago

        Yeah, when I had some extra money I considered getting VR but ultimately decided that it would be a waste & I’d only use it for 1-2 games then never tough it again.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
      201·
      7 hours ago

      I don‘t know about that. That Oculus founder seems worse than Suckerberg somehow.

      However I still think that somehow Facebook‘s dominance bottlenecks the VR industry right now. Their little data extractors are ironically too cheap for a healthy and vibrant VR economy, keeping competition and ideas out that the industry needs so desperately.

      • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        3 hours ago

        Plus the early adopters are not going to be lay-people, they are going to be tech enthusiests and people who know what they are shopping for. Having Meta and their data harvesting gadgets all over your home is something they would be very concious of, and in my case, avoid entirely for that reason.

        The outcome, is dispite the lower cost to get a VR headset, a lot of people still havent entered the space yet, due to the security concerns and refusal to accept the data collection terms of more afordable devices.

      • taladar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        3 hours ago

        Years after the initial releases VR still very much feels like a solution looking for a problem. As long as the industry doesn’t figure out why it should even exist there will likely just be a slow decline and there is no chance for growth.

      • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        4 hours ago

        I respect palmer luckey for what he as done for VR and what he still does. Yea i’m not a fan of the defence contracts but even there he did some cool stuff.

  • Kualdir@feddit.nlEnglish
    3·
    7 hours ago

    Sadly there isn’t even any company I could see making a dent in this in the near future. The Pico did something but not enough and Valve’s new headset will be too expensive to get a major %