VR in 2018: New Products and Market Forecasts
By Jim Bask
2017 was the first year when VR was a consumer reality. Headsets were available from a variety of vendors and at a variety of price points. Commercial markets for design and manufacturing began to adopt VR as a visualization too. And plenty of consumer VR experiences became available, from games to immersive video experiences, so nobody had an excuse for letting the device gather dust. First-gen VR experiences have wowed some users and disappointed others, but it’s clear that the technology will improve rapidly in terms of both the technical specs and the creative aesthetics. So where do we go from here?
Nowhere to Go But Up … Way Up
Most observers are expecting continued strong growth for VR in the foreseeable future. In its just-released Worldwide Semiannual Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending Guide, IDC projects AR/VR spending to climb by almost 95% in 2018, growing to a worldwide total of $17.8 billion from $9.1 billion in 2017. What’s more, the firm sees that robust annual growth rate holding steady through 2021. The fastest-growing segment of the market? The public sector — essentially infrastructure maintenance and government training — for which ICG expects a five-year compound annual growth rate of 156.7%….[continue reading]