Although Facebook’s parent company Meta invests trillions of won every year in the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) markets, the VR and AR market this year has decreased by 40% from last year.
According to market research firm Circana Data on the 19th (local time), sales of VR headsets and AR glasses in the U.S. were $664 million (KRW 867.8 billion) as of November 25. This is a significant drop from the same period last year when sales reached $1.1 billion (KRW 1.4377 trillion).
Last year’s sales were relatively good, down 2% year-on-year despite recession concerns, but sales have plummeted 40% this year. Meta is investing trillions of won in VR and AR every year before changing its name in October 2021, but the market is going backwards.
Meta has a half share in the VR market. However, Meta’s reality lab, which develops VR and AR technologies, lost $3.7 billion (KRW4.83 trillion) in the third quarter to $210 million (KRW261.4 billion).
Since the beginning of 2022, shortly after CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his name to Meta, Reality Labs’ loss has totaled $25 billion (KRW 32.67 trillion).
However, the market for the second half of the year showed an improvement from last year. VR headsets sold in the U.S. during the eight-week period from October to November this year were $271 million (KRW 354.1 billion), up 42 percent from $191 million (KRW 249.6 billion) during the same period last year. This is because Meta’s new VR headset Quest 3, which was introduced in late September, was very popular. The Quest 3 is $200 cheaper than the basic model of the Quest 2.
Although the VR and AR market shrank significantly this year, analysts say that next year may be different from this year. IDC, a market researcher, predicts that the VR and AR market will grow 47% next year from this year and rebound. The reason was the launch of “Vision Pro” that Apple introduced in June.
“The launch of the Vision Pro could play a pivotal role in strengthening the VR and AR market next year,” IDC said. “Apple’s entry next year will bring a lot of attention to the market and force other companies to compete in it,” said Ramon Ramas, director of IDC research.
SALLY LEE
ASIA JOURNAL
