Analysts are optimistic about the development of the VR/AR market. TrendForce Tibco expects that 2022 will attract more hardware brand manufacturers to step into the VR/AR market development, which will also prompt application service providers to drive the hardware market directly or indirectly. IDC predicts that global shipments will climb to 43.2 million units by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53.1% from 2020 to 2025. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2020 to 2025 is 53.1%.
XR “boom”: giants scramble to enter
The XR field, which is considered by capital as the “entrance to the next-generation computing platform” and the “foundation of the metaverse”, is once again at the forefront of the major technology giants. A few days ago, the United States Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent related to the deformation of objects in the extended reality environment. Apple’s patent, which will be taken more seriously by its VR/AR developers, covers the system and methods for modifying the display of XR objects in XR environments.
In addition, after 7 years without a new hardware product, every industry analyst and expert is saying that Apple is about to launch an AR/VR headset, and all the clues point to “realityOS”, a whole new ecosystem. Apple may use the “Reality” family of names for its new products, and trademark filings show that Apple has applied for the registration of three trademarks for Reality. The three trademark applications all mention keywords such as virtual reality and augmented reality headsets and smart glasses.
If true, this would be the first time Apple has opened a new product line since Apple’s smartwatch Apple Watch in 2015. According to Korean securities firm NH Investment & Securities, Apple’s upcoming XR device is expected to start mass production around November, with estimates of hundreds of thousands of units shipped, and the new product will debut in the first quarter of 2023. Beyond its symbolic impact, the release of Apple’s XR device is significant for the industry. Because it promises to improve the level of hardware compared to existing XR devices by at least several levels, reducing the burden of performance optimization and creating high-quality content.
The XR industry is on a high with good news from the industry. According to the news, Meta brings a new headset Project Cambria different from the former series Quest, the former is more suitable for work purposes, and the latter is more suitable for the gaming experience, even Cambria will replace laptops and other devices, and thoroughly match with the office scene. It is not difficult to guess that the former Quest2 has sold more than 10 million units after its launch, and the latter has a new headset, Project Cambria, to gradually build a complete XR application ecology.
Tracing back to its roots, the success of Meta Quest 2’s phenomenal product has allowed many brands to see the hope of the XR hardware market. In 2014, Facebook bought the famous VR device company Oculus at a cost of $2 billion, and after incorporating Oculus, Facebook gave it huge support in terms of people, money, and materials, which allowed Oculus to strike on all fronts and launch a series of new products one after another. VR glasses with a very high price/performance ratio to let Facebook in the VR device market share significantly improved, for Facebook to grab the entrance of the goal to create a good start.
In addition, WiMi Hologram Cloud (NASDAQ: WIMI) has been laying out AR and VR for many years and has accumulated a lot of talent, patents, and corresponding industry chain preparation. WiMi has established a relatively complete AR technology R&D system, VR content production and reserve system, and AR/VR commercialization system. In terms of patents, it has developed 195 patents on image processing and display, model input/output, 3D modeling-related technologies, 325 software copyrights, and 5,000 AR/VR contents of high quality and high fidelity produced.
It is understood that WiMi is rated as a global high-tech enterprise. Currently, it is mainly dedicated to the research and development of AR, VR, AI, and other software and hardware products and the ecological construction with a holographic cloud operating system as the carrier, and its AR and XR products have been put into use in the industry. In addition, WiMi outputs complete solutions for the XR industry, combining XR system, AI image, digital human, cloud rendering, and other capabilities to jointly build a 5G+XR platform and cultivate XR application ecology. In the future, WiMi will give full play to our corporate advantages, adapt to XR international standards, breakthrough AR technology barriers such as multi-modal perceptual interaction and spatial positioning, and jointly build the AR and XR market.
Summary
Compared to five or six years ago, XR has begun to penetrate all walks of life, and both giants and entrepreneurs are waging a war of attrition in anticipation of a true explosion of the XR industry. Many industry insiders are optimistic about the development of the XR industry in 2022 and even in the next few years, saying that although it still faces technical and market challenges, the XR industry will usher in new development opportunities. It should be noted that XR means extended reality, which is the industry’s collective name for various segments covering VR, AR, MR, and other industries.
It cannot be ignored that along with the iterations of the metaverse era, XR practitioners believe that the XR industry is one of the infrastructures and important entrances to the metaverse. In addition to the game field, XR devices are increasingly penetrating into industry fields such as e-commerce, cultural tourism, industrial manufacturing, advertising and marketing, telecommuting, education and training, health and wellness, etc. While achieving commercial applications and market demand growth, the scenarios and depth and breadth of applications are being further enriched and expanded. This also once again confirms that XR will become an important engine of competition in the future metaverse.
