Apple or the last chance of virtual and augmented reality headsets

The moment of truth has come for the virtual and augmented reality headset market. While these devices for full (VR) or partial (AR) immersion in a digital universe have been struggling to convince the crowds for years, Apple’s long-awaited irruption in this segment of tech is akin to playing the game -everything from an entire sector.

“If Apple crashes, we are off to a ten-year market freeze,” said Yves Maître, the former boss of HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone brand that has become a VR specialist, before the conference held on Monday. June 6 at Apple headquarters in California. In the past, the Cupertino company had however been able to meet expectations by making smartphones take off thanks to its iPhone.

Anecdotal sales

Available from next year in the United States, the Vision Pro helmet from the apple brand could further strengthen Apple’s reputation on its ability to impose new technologies in everyday life.

But it will first be necessary to wake up sales of VR and AR headsets for the moment anecdotal compared to those of smartphones (1.2 billion units in 2022), computers (290 million) and even tablets (45 million).

Thus, the firm IDC is counting on a little more than 10 million immersive headsets put on the market in 2023, not far from the historic record of 11 million units in 2021. Despite regularly very promising forecasts over the past ten years, the market occupied by Meta, HTC, Valve, Sony and the Chinese DPVR and Pico (Bytedance) has never exceeded this milestone for sometimes economic reasons (semiconductor crisis) but also because the technology was considered expensive and complex by the general public.

Towards a Meta match against Apple?

By simplifying the uses as much as possible – in particular by allowing the helmet to be used without being physically connected to a computer by a cable – and by drastically lowering the price (349 dollars at launch), the Oculus subsidiary of the Meta group ended up s arrogated three quarters of the market with its Quest model in 2019 and especially the Quest 2 since 2020. But it had not found a way to explode sales. Very opportunely, a few days before Apple’s presentation, Mark Zuckerberg’s company announced the first technical details for a Quest 3 expected next fall for 500 dollars.

But the two groups each approach the market from a different end. With mixed success despite significant communication efforts around the concept of virtual worlds of the metaverse, Meta first designed its headsets for the general public and video games. before recently seeking to seduce companies.

Apple relies on complementarity

On the contrary, Apple places a strong emphasis on the business use of its new device. “Even if the headset is also designed for entertainment, including through a partnership with Disney, the first use highlighted during the conference is productivity, whether at the office or from home while telecommuting”, notes Sébastien Laye. , co-author of “Metavers: a practical vision” published by Eyrolles.

With this strategy and given the price (3,500 dollars), Apple’s sales will probably remain confidential at first. “We should not expect a tsunami but a very powerful phenomenon of porosity via the rest of the Apple ecosystem”, resumes Yves Maitre. The future will tell if the Vision Pro will impose itself in the panoply of Apple customers for its complementarity with the MacBook, the iPhone and the application store.