A recent report estimates that shipment of virtual reality (VR) devices, excluding mobile-based products, is likely to reach nine million units in 2016. This whopping figure is mainly attributed to the strong pre-order sales of the recently launched PlayStation VR.
Sales of PlayStation (PS) VR will surpass that of its competitors, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, this year, while securing 67% global VR device market share. In other words, Sony is expected to ship about 6 million units of its PS VR this year, TrendForce, a global market research firm, reported.
During the same period, rival companies Oculus and HTC are expected to ship 2.3 million Oculus Rift and 700,000 HTC Vive, respectively, data released by Taiwan-based Topology Research Institute revealed.
According to TrendForce, following the releases of HTC's Vive and Oculus's Rift, Sony made its PS VR available for pre-order this month. The market reception for PS VR has been excellent in Japan as well as many other regions, which reported that their pre-order shipments were sold out soon after the announcement.
While sales of various branded VR headsets have been brisk so far, shipments of the VR devices this year will be largely influenced by the supply side of the market, Jason Tsai, wearable device analyst at TrendForce, said. He added that shipments of VR devices will grow at a CAGR of 53.5% from 9 million units in 2016 to 50 million units in 2020.
The analyst explained that so far the branded VR headset vendors have been conventional in increasing the inventories prior to releasing their products in the market. However, now that the product demand has overwhelmed the supply, they would need to regulate their inventories during the next two quarters or else the demand for VR devices will continue till the second half of 2017.
Tsai pointed out that software is fast turning out to be the largest opportunity in the VR industry. According to estimates, that the entire value of the VR market will surpass $70 billion in 2020 and almost 60% of this will come from software.
The analyst anticipated that the strong sales of various branded VR devices will attract more firms from the hardware field to venture into manufacturing VR devices. At the same time, several software developers too will enter the market during few years to help expand the range of VR applications.
Watch Sony PlayStation VR headset being showcased at #PlayStationPGW below: