Virtual reality is steadily gaining popularity

Slowly but surely, the virtual reality technology is gaining momentum. More and more people are interested in buying a particular VR-device for entertainment, movies, education, or simply out of curiosity. Three major players VR-market released their headset only in the last year, and during this short span of time they have achieved great success in promoting unfamiliar to most people technology. If earlier and were skeptics who did not believe in the success of the venture, now they remain less and less.

To begin with, the research company Nielsen released yesterday is very interesting data, collected during a large-scale opinion poll. It turns today 51% of respondents are aware that such a VR or AR-headset. A year earlier heard about these devices, only 28% of respondents. Thus, in just one year the awareness of people about the technology of virtual and augmented reality has almost doubled. Among gamers awareness of the VR-headsets, and gaming has increased from 37% to 63%.

Despite the fact that a complete VR-experience you provide only three sets: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR, mostly Americans say they have heard about the mobile Gear VR, what undoubted merit advertisers South Korean company Samsung. About her know 34% of respondents, while last year this figure was at around 12%. About PlayStation VR to date 26% of respondents against 10% a year earlier. Oculus Rift is familiar to 25% of the respondents, as opposed to last year's 16%. As for the desire to buy a one time or another device, here Sony pulled out far ahead of its competitors. 10% of respondents expressed a desire to buy a PlayStation VR in the near future. But in fact the case with sales of VR-headset? After all, the manufacturers of these devices are in no hurry to share with us the statistics, apparently believing that as long as the numbers are not very impressive. SuperData analytical agency conducted its own investigation and find out how well things are going in the three largest manufacturers of head-mounted display. So, for the first quarter of 2017 Sony managed to sell 375,000 headsets PlayStation VR, as we recall, in February has been sold 915,000 helmets. So, at the moment of sale of this headset has crossed over 1.2 million boxes, that the Japanese manufacturer is pretty good, considering how young the market. SuperData experts suggest that by the end of 2017 Sony sells approximately 2, 6 million of its set.

As for the main competitors of the Japanese, they are not doing so smoothly. Second place in sales takes HTC, which succeeded the first quarter of 2017 to realize their headsets 95,000 Vive. Facebook company is lagging behind with 64,000 sold helmet Oculus Rift. By the end of this year is expected to be sold 553 thousand sets of HTC Vive and 346,000 Oculus Rift. Of course, if we take into account the mobile solutions like Gear VR, their sales significantly outperformed full VR-set. During the first quarter of 2017 Samsung managed to sell more than 700,000 of its devices. But, as you well know, mobile VR-headset unable to provide an equally vivid impressions as stationary. If last year's profit of VR was 1, 8 billion dollars in the current year profit forecast to have $ 4, $ 9 billion. By 2020, the same year SuperData specialists promise of profit growth from virtual reality to a mark of 37, $ 7 billion.