Omdia: It takes more than ten years for VR to become truly popular

Omdia analysts talked about the future of the virtual reality market. By 2025, spending on VR content alone will exceed $4 billion. But really mass VR will not become until the 2030s.

General data from the forecast:

• In 2020, users will buy 6.4 million VR headsets, and 3.3 million of these devices will be autonomous (not requiring a PC or console to work).
• Revenue from the sale of VR content by the end of 2020 will reach $1.1 billion, and the total turnover of the segment will be $ 3.2 billion.
• The total revenue of the virtual reality market in 2025 will be about $10 billion. A little less than half of the amount ($4 billion) will bring VR content, mostly it will be games (90%).
• By 2025, the volume of headsets sold will grow to 45 million, but the VR segment itself will remain niche.
• Five years later, VR headsets will appear in the homes of only 3% of residents from 32 leading countries (it is not specified which countries are meant). For comparison, now no more than 1.2% of the population use virtual reality helmets.
• VR will continue to grow, but not very fast. According to analysts, it will take at least ten years before the mass introduction of this technology.
• At the same time, users will increasingly appreciate the hybrid autonomy of headsets, Omdia believes. This category will account for the majority of sales in 2025.

The situation with equipment manufacturers:

• Facebook, with their Oculus Quest helmets, has made a bet on hybrid devices, analysts write. According to the forecast, in 2020 the company will sell about 1.2 headsets from the Quest line, and in 2025 — 5.6 million headsets.
• However, during these five years, Facebook will not be able to finally strengthen its position in the niche. Omdia expects that more affordable hybrid helmets (mainly from China) will appear on the market in the near future. Against this background, Facebook’s share in global sales of autonomous VR will decrease from 48% in 2020 to 35% in 2025.
• Sony recently announced that it will not launch PSVR 2 next year. Omdia assumes that this console VR will be released at the end of 2022, when the company will no longer have to focus so much on its latest novelty PS5.
• Probably, in anticipation of the launch of PSVR 2, players will purchase the previous headset model less often. But in the premiere three months, the circulation of PSVR 2 will reach the mark of 900 thousand devices sold.
• Analysts do not make predictions for Valve‘s VR devices, but emphasize that the Valve Index headset connected to a PC remains popular for now. This was largely facilitated by the release of Half Life: Alyx. However, the high price ($999) and the need for a powerful computer scared off a significant part of the players.
• Meanwhile, the successful future of HTC helmets is under threat, Omdia notes. Experiments with expanding the portfolio and launching projects like Vive Cosmos can go sideways for the company.
• Due to the slow growth rate of VR, almost all interactive video content with a 360-degree overview may soon suffer. We are talking about the BBC VR Hub, Google Spotlight Stories, Jaunt and Oculus Story Studio.

Also on the topic:

• VR horror Phasmophobia entered the top 10 bestsellers on SteamJapanese VR developer Thirdverse has attracted $8.5 million in investments
• The authors of the VR-thriller The Walking Dead: Onslaught raised $16.7 million
• Is there any news?