Global Augmented Reality (AR) Development History
From the definition of AR in 1997 to the present day AR applications and products on the ground; the AR industry has gone through a period of rapid development for more than 20 years.After the release of Apple Inc.'s iPhone in 2008, the smartphone industry has seen unprecedented development. The development of the smartphone industry has contributed to the decline in the price, size and performance of display devices and sensors, laying a solid technical foundation for the popularization of VR/AR products.
In April 2012, Brin, co-founder of Google, parachuted into the conference wearing Google Glass, announcing the official debut of Google Glass. As one of the most attention-grabbing tech products in 2012, Google Glass successfully started a new round of VR craze. Subsequently, other tech giants also quickly followed suit and actively engaged in the research and development of VR technology, and on this basis, AR and mixed reality MR and other technologies have also been brought into the orbit of rapid development.
In recent years, with the rapid development of AR technology, the use of AR products has been expanded to many fields, such as video, games, engineering, military, education, medical, real estate and retail. Overall, the current global AR market is still dominated by industry users, with fewer individual users; in the consumer-level market, as of the end of 2022, Nreal reached a record of 100,000 units of AR glasses mass production, with sales ranking first in the world.
Global augmented reality (AR) consumer-grade users will reach 9.7 million people
According to Statista's data, the global AR consumer users in 2020-2022 continue to rise from 3.6 million people in 2020 to 5.4 million people in 2021; it is expected that in 2022 will reach 9.7 million people with a two-year CAGR of 64%.
Note: 2022 data is an estimate.
Global augmented reality (AR) terminal shipments of 700,000 units
From the perspective of the global market, the AR terminal device shipments in 2021 grew more block. According to the data released by IDC, the global AR terminal shipments were about 450,000 units in 2017, but due to the AR technology has not yet broken through the bottleneck, such as low resolution and pixel density, insufficient refresh rate and frame rate, long latency of networking applications, as well as inconsistent standards between different vendors, expensive and other issues that lead to difficulties in the commercialization of AR devices on the ground, and in 2018, the global AR terminal shipments of 260,000 units, a A sharp decline of 42% year-on-year. With the construction of 5G base stations in countries around the world and the development of 5G technology, the bandwidth and low-latency characteristics can solve the problems of insufficient image rendering capacity, poor terminal mobility and weak interactive experience brought about by AR due to insufficient bandwidth and latency, and in 2021, the global AR terminal shipments will be about 700,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 75%.
All-in-one AR device market share reaches 70%
AR devices can be subdivided into all-in-one and non-all-in-one devices. All-in-one AR devices refer to AR devices with built-in processors, sensors, batteries, storage memory, and displays, and thus do not need to be connected to a PC or smartphone, such as Quest 2, Pico Neo 3, etc. Non-all-in-one AR devices such as AR glasses inserted into a phone, which utilize the smartphone to provide a virtual reality experience, basically only the function of viewing a movie, sliding the smartphone in to use the phone as a display to show a 3D picture; or AR headset, which connects to a PC computer via a data cable (HDMI/USB), which calculates the data and renders the graphics to be transmitted to the headset via the data cable, which provides a higher-quality AR experience and a stronger sense of immersion.
According to the global AR device segmentation product structure data published by IDC, the current global AR devices can be categorized into all-in-one and non-all-in-one, of which all-in-one AR devices account for a larger share, accounting for about 70% of the overall market share, and non-all-in-one AR devices account for about 30% of the overall market share.
Global Augmented Reality (AR) Terminal Market Reaches $7.2 Billion
With the generation change of AR products and the cost reduction of important components, the average selling price of AR terminals will gradually decrease. According to Strategic Analytics, the global average unit price of consumer-grade AR terminals will drop to $740 per unit in 2021. Preliminary estimates indicate that the global AR terminal market size will be about $7.2 billion in 2021, a year-on-year growth of 66%.
-- The above data refer to the China Augmented Reality (AR) Industry Development Outlook Forecast and Investment Strategy Planning Analysis Report
by Foresight Industry Research Institute.