Recently updated on November 6th, 2021 at 10:25 pm
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For the first time, there seems like a new hope for the virtual reality industry. Canalys, an independent analyst company has come up with a press release and report on 27th November 2017 showing that the total VR headset sales for Q3 (Quarter 3) 2017 has exceeded 1 million units. The report from Canalys is produced on quarterly basis to track the VR market. The sales achievement is quite phenomenal and significant considering everybody is now talking about the slowing down or downtrend of VR industry…
More on VR Headset Sales…
From the Canalys report titled “Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Analysis“, in summary:
1) Sony with its PlayStation VR (PS VR) is at the top spot with 490,000 shipments (49%).
2) Followed by Oculus Rift with 210,000 shipments (21%).
3) And the third is HTC Vive with 160,000 shipments (16%).
4) Others is 14%.
Easily said, the three big giants (Sony, Oculus and HTC) grabbed the VR market share by 86%. For Sony, it seems a lot easier for them to capture the Japanese market due to their strong culture and community of gaming and entertainment sector such as anime, otaku, manga, robot etc. Furthermore, Sony PlayStation has a lot of popular game with strong fan base such as Resident Evil and Gran Turismo. I believe if the analyst team also takes into account the number of simple VR viewers such as Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, Google’s Daydream View etc, then the number will be much more higher. Anyway, kudos and big applause to them for their persistence in this industry.
So, what is their strategy for this nearly ending Q4 2017? Well, it looks like they will play the price by reducing them significantly. For example, Oculus cut its price to USD399 so that it can be more competitive with PS VR. Perhaps, the coming Christmas festive season will boost up the sales.
From what the trend looks like, 2018 will be more interesting with the entry from Microsoft with its Windows Mixed Reality platform and other VR headsets from established IT players such as HP, Acer, Asus, Dell and Lenovo. For more info, you can read it at:
1) “Media alert: Virtual reality headset shipments top 1 million for the first time” from Canalys.
2) “Virtual Reality Headset Sales Hit 1 Million” from Forbes.
3) “Virtual reality headset unit sales are slowly improving” from TechCrunch.
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