Trade Law Daily is a Warren News publication.

Commercial Applications to Continue to Lead AR/VR Uses, Says IDC

Worldwide shipments of augmented reality and virtual reality headsets are forecast to reach 8.9 million units this year, up 54.1 percent year on year, said IDC Thursday. New headsets from Oculus, HTC, Microsoft and others will help fuel growth in…

Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article

Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.

the category expected to ship 68.6 million units in 2023, but two-thirds of the AR/VR market growth will come from the commercial side. VR headsets will reach 36.7 million 2023, said IDC, with stand-alone models comprising 59 percent of shipments in 2023, tethered head-mounted displays at 37.4 percent and screenless viewers the remainder. AR headset shipments, reaching 31.9 million units in 2023, will be led by stand-alone units with 55.3 percent share, HMDs at 44.3 percent and screenless viewers at less than 1 percent. VR pioneers “have wisely moved to embrace commercial use cases for the technology as they wait for more consumer-centric experiences beyond gaming and video to materialize," said analyst Tom Mainelli. The AR side has largely been enterprise-focused, a trend that's expected to continue.