Market: for virtual reality, a company crushes the competition

© Unsplash/Igor Omilaev

According to the IDC firm, often very well informed on this subject, in the fourth American calendar quarter of 2024 it is Meta which would be the world number one in VR headsets with more than 60% market share. Sony ranks second with less than 20% of the pie, while the Korean Samsung has simply disappeared from the ranking. It's ByteDance which occupies the last place on the podium, the company having recently bought the manufacturer Pico. And you, which mount do you use? As a reminder, Apple has also just unveiled its own device: the Vision Pro.

Meta had specified that it wanted to focus on 360-degree experiences when changing the name of its holding company, previously bearing the name of its flagship social network: Facebook. As for the Apple firm, it could, according to some analysts, generate no less than five hundred billion dollars in revenue with its Apple Vision Pro in just a few years. As a reminder, the product remains far too expensive, even today. You have to pay the tidy sum of around $3,500 to afford it. The item does not yet have an exact release date in France at the moment, but it can be obtained in the United States.

Who are the big names in the sector ?

Today, alongside the Vision Pro, it is probably the Meta Quest 3 which is mainly making headlines internationally. Successor to the Oculus ranges (the company was bought by Meta), this virtual reality headset offers an immersive interface but with less definition than the Quest Pro. On the other hand, the latter is much more expensive, where the Quest 3 has the significant advantage of being worth less than a thousand euros – at the time of writing these lines. The manufacturer has not yet mentioned the possibility of a successor, but we know that Mark Zuckerberg recently met with the CEO of LG to design another mount. The latter could perhaps be released next year, but nothing is less certain: no official confirmation has reached us for the moment.

Sony, for its part, does not hesitate to consolidate its position as an outsider to watch thanks to PlayStation VR. The Japanese recently revealed particularly satisfactory financial results, even if it has to deal with fierce competition from Microsoft and Apple in the global gaming market. As a reminder, Sony also produces films often attracting millions of spectators, and it is the subcontractor which supplies the two 4K panels of the Vision Pro. We have also seen him at the helm of numerous reflex cameras considered among the most efficient of their generation, or the back photo sensors of the most popular high-end iPhones.

Phenomenal growth for VR headsets

Coming back to the study just published by IDC, you should know that it explains in black and white that sales of virtual or augmented reality headsets have more than doubled (more than 130% growth) between the fourth US calendar quarter 2022 and the same period last year. Remember, moreover, that this is when manufacturers tend to record the most orders. And for good reason: we find there both Black Friday, Thanksgiving in the United States and the end of year holidays with Christmas under the tree.

In the coming quarters, Apple should also appear in the IDC rankings. If this is not the case for the moment, it is because the Vision Pro only saw its pre-orders arrive on the manufacturer's official website. last January. Or after the period analyzed by the specialized firm.

• Meta is the world number one in sales of VR headsets, apparently -t-il
• Sony is second and notably offers the PlayStation VR headset
• The reality headset market virtual or augmented grew by approximately 130%, from one year to the next

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