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We will work on finding the total number of virtual reality headsets to be sold, year by year, from 2016 to 2022. If the data exists, we will provide numbers broken down by company that makes them.
Hello! Thank you for your question regarding the total number of virtual reality headsets to be sold from 2016 to 2022, year by year. In short, here are the statistics for the number of VR headsets that were/will be sold from 2016-2022:2016 - 6.3 million units, 2017 -12 million units, 2018 - 20 million units. 2019 - 25 million units, 2020 - 60 million units, 2021 - 100 million units, 2022 - 500 million units. Below you will find an explanation of the methodology and findings in detail.
METHODOLOGY
In order to answer your request, I tried to find reports that indicate the projections for VR headset sales year by year for 2016-2022. Although I was able to find direct projection figures, the figures projected varied by different market research firms. Hence, I have provided a conservative value for projected device sales in such cases as the VR market has not grown as per the forecasts so far. Please note that the 2016 sales data figures provided by SuperData research firm have been presented differently in Haptic and Viarbox. The difference comes as Haptic includes the smartphone powered VR headsets in the total sales figures whereas Viarbox did not. So, I was able to find general data for time spent on watching VR content and the amount that people spent category wise for 2016. While I was able to find general trends for consumer spend in terms of money and time, I was unable to find specific projections in this area. I have listed all these findings in the following section.
FINDINGS
According to SuperData research published on VR headsets for 2016, the number of devices sold is about 6.3 million units. Of this, 4.5 million headsets were sold by Samsung as their Samsung Gear VR headsets.
CCS Insights forecasts that the number of VR headsets sold in 2017 will increase by approximately 50% from 2016 to about 12 million units. Although IHS Technology projects this figure to be 30 million units, I have considered the conservative estimate as explained earlier in the methodology section. This is also backed by Business Insider's Intelligence (BI Intelligence) estimates which project the VR headsets sales around the 12 million units figure.
Since we can establish CCS Insights to be a credible source due to the concurrence of its data with that of BI Intelligence, we can use its projection of 2018 sales which is 20 million units. BI Intelligence also projects the same number for 2018.
BI Intelligence forecasts the sales of VR headsets in 2019 to be about 25 million units whereas IHS technology forecasts this estimate to be about 60 million units. However, all the estimates, for other years, of IHS Technology are bullish and do not coincide with other research firms' projections. For example, IDC forecasts that 60 million units will be sold only in 2020. Hence, I am using a conservative estimate of 25 million units for 2019. Please do note that BI Intelligence estimates increase consistently by 10 million units from the year after 2019 which might not be indicative of quality research. Thus from here on, we will not look for BI Intelligence for estimates.
According to IDC, in 2020, 60 million units of VR headsets will be sold whereas, in 2021, the number of VR headsets sold will increase by almost 67% to 100 million units according to ABI Research. This is also supported by IDC research report which says that 99.4 million units will be sold in 2021. Strategy Analytics predicts that by 2022, the sales of VR headsets will reach 500 million.
Revenue from VR content was projected to cross a billion dollars by 2016 according to Deloitte. Gaming contributed most of this revenue with about $300 million. However, in the future, the VR content that will be generated will mainly be for professional sports and travel since these are the categories that are best suited for 360-degree viewing. Despite extensive research, I was unable to find any numbers on the time that would be spent by users watching VR content in the future.
SUMMARY
In short, here are the statistics for number of VR headsets that were/will be sold from 2016-2022:
2016:6.3 million units
2017: 12 million units
2018: 20 million units
2019: 25 million units
2020: 60 million units
2021: 100 million units
2022: 500 million units
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