Author: Alex Hadwick
XR Industry
Insight Report
2019-2020
2 | VRX Industry Insight Report 2019-2020
2
2019
VRX Conference & Expo
December 12-13, 2019 | San Francisco, USA
For more information: www.vr-intelligence.com/vrx | Email: kbloxham@vr-intelligence.com
600+
Attendees
70%
Decision Makers
80+
Expert Speakers
50%
End Users
10+
Industry Verticals
CONTENTS
List of Figures................................................................3
Introduction .................................................................4
Executive Summary ..........................................................5
1 Areas of Growth .........................................................7
1.1 Growth Trends......................................................7
1.2 Developments Required for Future Growth............................14
1.2.1 Viewpoint: Hooking Up HMDs .......................................16
2 Immersive Technology for Enterprise in 2019...............................18
2.1.1 Viewpoint: A Sustainable Enterprise Ecosystem........................21
2.1.2 Viewpoint: The Enterprise Use Case .................................23
3 Immersive Technology for the Consumer in 2019 ...........................24
3.1 Consumer Content .................................................24
3.1.1 Viewpoint: VR Consumer Adoption...................................25
3.2 An XR Breakthrough?...............................................27
3.2.1 Viewpoint: AR at a Tipping Point? ....................................30
3.3 Supporting Consumer Technology ...................................30
4 Conclusion ............................................................33
Methodology ...............................................................34
References .................................................................35
3 | VRX Industry Insight Report 2019-2020
3
2019
VRX Conference & Expo
December 12-13, 2019 | San Francisco, USA
For more information: www.vr-intelligence.com/vrx | Email: kbloxham@vr-intelligence.com
600+
Attendees
70%
Decision Makers
80+
Expert Speakers
50%
End Users
10+
Industry Verticals
Figure 1: How Would You Describe the Growth of Your Business in These Areas
Over the Past 12 Months? .........................................................8
Figure 2: In Which of the Following Areas Does Your Business Work? .......................... 9
Figure 3: To What Extent Will You Be Prioritising These Areas Over the Next 12 Months? ......... 9
Figure 4: What Do You See as the Biggest Barrier to Mass Consumer Adoption of VR? ..........10
Figure 5: When Do You Think We’ll See Widely Accepted Mainstream Consumer
Adoption of VR & AR/MR? ........................................................ 11
Figure 6: In Which of These Industries Do You Intend to Work in Over the Next 12 Months? .......14
Figure 7: Which Components and Functions Do You Believe Are Most Important to Develop,
Improve and Integrate for XR to Be More Widely Adopted? ..........................15
Figure 8: When Do You Think That the Predominant Use of AR Will Move from
Phone-based to Headset-based? .................................................17
Figure 9: How Would You Describe the Impact of XR on Your Business? .......................18
Figure 10: Expected Investment into XR in the Medium Term ..................................19
Figure 11: In Which of These Areas Do You Use XR in Your Business? .........................20
Figure 12: What’s Stopping You from Integrating VR or AR/MR into Your Business? ...............21
Figure 13: Roughly How Much of Your XR Content Is Built Internally Versus
Outsourced to Specialist Developers? ............................................ 22
Figure 14: Weekly Retention Rates for Consumer VR Apps ................................... 24
Figure 15: Does Your Business Create VR or AR/MR Content? ................................26
Figure 16: Do You Think VR or AR/MR Has More Potential to Disrupt the
Entertainment Sector Over the Next Five Years? ................................... 27
Figure 17: How Would You Describe the Impact of XR on the Growth of Your Business? .......... 28
Figure 18: Do You Intend to Increase Your Production of XR Content Over the Coming Years? ....28
Figure 19: Consumer VR Headset Market Share .............................................31
Figure 20: Consumer VR Headset Graphics Card Market Share ................................31
Figure 21: Consumer VR Headset Processor Market Share ................................... 32
Figure 22: Consumer VR Headset External Sensors ......................................... 32
LIST OF FIGURES
4 | VRX Industry Insight Report 2019-2020
4
2019
VRX Conference & Expo
December 12-13, 2019 | San Francisco, USA
For more information: www.vr-intelligence.com/vrx | Email: kbloxham@vr-intelligence.com
600+
Attendees
70%
Decision Makers
80+
Expert Speakers
50%
End Users
10+
Industry Verticals
INTRODUCTION
Could we be nearing a tipping point? That should be the question on the minds of executives
working in and around immersive tech as we head towards 2020. Up until now, questions
have lingered about awareness, content availability and technology adoption, costs and
ergonomics. However, it appears that many of these are progressively being addressed and
the sector is picking up momentum according to our survey of more than 750 professionals
working in and around XR technologies.
Enterprises are really beginning to grasp the potential for immersive technologies to change
the landscape, with higher growth rates reported than in our 2018 survey. Many sectors are
really seeing the value that can be brought from investing in XR capabilities, particularly
education, architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing and healthcare fields.
For those that take the dive into immersive tech, the gains are real and demonstrable,
strengthening the case for investment and deployment. A massive 93% of enterprises that
have decided to use VR have seen a positive eect on their business with 57% saying
that that uplift was very positive. It is worth noting that these respondents to our survey
are relatively early adopters and therefore likely to be enthusiastic and successful users.
Nonetheless, this is spurring on greater investment that will further accelerate gains and
adoption.
Although professionals in our survey were more subdued in their expectations for consumer
interest and adoption, there may be cause for more optimism than is being expressed. This
is because AR seems on the verge of breaking out into something really big. Already 2019
has seen a series of massive announcements from tech giants, including the roll-outs of
new features or products from Facebook, Snapchat, Google, Apple, Huawei and YouTube. If
developers and brands grasp the opportunities flowing out from this, 2020 could be a huge
year for consumer AR.
To understand more of these key trends, please read on and uncover the findings from our
major industry survey of more than 750 XR professionals, of whom 35% come from C-suite
positions.
5 | VRX Industry Insight Report 2019-2020
5
2019
VRX Conference & Expo
December 12-13, 2019 | San Francisco, USA
For more information: www.vr-intelligence.com/vrx | Email: kbloxham@vr-intelligence.com
600+
Attendees
70%
Decision Makers
80+
Expert Speakers
50%
End Users
10+
Industry Verticals
Executive Summary
■■ Hardware, software and third-party content creators for XR have seen much stronger growth
in the enterprise side of their businesses compared to growth in the consumer sector over
the last 12 months: Just 25.7% said that growth in the VR for enterprise segment had been
weaker than expected, compared to 49.2% who said the same for the consumer side.
■■ Growth appears to be accelerating for enterprise applications, particularly VR. In 2018 38%
said that they were seeing strong or very strong growth in VR for enterprise, which rose to
46% in 2019’s survey.
■■ This reflect demand trends with enterprise end users seeing strong ROI. 93% of enterprise
users said that VR had had a positive impact on their business and 88.4% said the same for
AR/MR.
■■ 98.6% of enterprise users said that they were at least considering investing more into XR
in the next few years. Of these, 65.7% were sure that they would make future investments,
22.9% said that they were likely to but still undergoing testing and 10% said that they were
at least considering doing so but could not confirm.
■■ XR technology and content suppliers are chasing this growth and shifting focus to
providing enterprises with solutions: 73% of these companies said that they were working
on VR for enterprise functions and just under 65% said that they were doing the same for
AR and MR. By comparison, well under half said that they were working on either for the
consumer segment, with just 37.4% reporting working on AR and MR applications.
■■ Product design and prototyping was the most common area of usage for enterprise end
users, with more than 96% deploying VR to help the process, followed by workforce/
project collaboration (93.4%), educational learning (89.7%), training/worker guidance
(89.7%), sales & marketing/external communication (84.2%) and manufacturing (81.1%).
■■ AR/MR is being used far less frequently across the board, with its most likely application
to be in sales, marketing and external communications, where 56.6% say that they use the
technology.
■■ The leading sector that XR-supporting companies intend to work with is the education
sector, with 55.8% saying they expect to provide services to it. The next highest
categories were AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction; 44.2%), healthcare (42.3%),
manufacturing (39.6%) and automotive (36%).
■■ Gaming is now viewed with far less interest by companies working to provide XR
technology compared to 2018’s results. In that year’s survey, 50% of respondents said that
