According to IDC, Q1 2018 global shipments of AR and VR headsets are down by -30.5% Y-o-Y-- but despite such a poor start the analyst believes the market will see a return to growth during the rest of the year.
The Q1 2018 decline was brought about by the unbundling of screenless VR headsets. During most of 2017, vendor bundled such headsets for free with the purchase of a high-end smartphone, but the practice essentially came to an end by early 2018. However IDC insists the headset market still has potential for growth, since more vendors will target the commercial market.
In the meantime more low-cost standalone VR headsts, such as the Oculus Go, should start hitting shelves this year. As such, IDC forecasts the overall AR and VR headset market will total 8.9 million units in 2018, a 6% increase over 2017, before reaching 65.9m units by 2022.
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