If you pay attention to Steam’s monthly survey of hardware and software usage, then you know that the Meta Quest 2 headset has the greatest market share of all VR headsets—by a wide margin.
Now, new data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker confirm Meta’s dominance in the VR market.
According to IDC, Meta has captured around 90 percent of the VR market, followed by ByteDance’s Pico, whose market share is only 4.5 percent.
The success of the Meta Quest 2 headset can be attributed to its great value (Meta likely sells the device at loss), and the rapidly growing library of VR games, apps, and experiences—all of which are together supposed to bring Meta’s vision for the metaverse to life.
“Meta continues to pour dollars into developing the metaverse but the strategy of promoting low-cost hardware at the expense of profitability isn’t sustainable in the long run,” says Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.
Next year will be especially decisive for Meta because the company is expected to release a new high-end headset, and Pico, Sony, and, most importantly, Apple, are also anticipated to do the same.
“The good news is that the upcoming productivity-oriented headset from Meta will serve as the starting point for the company’s pivot towards higher revenue-generating hardware and will also help provide an uplift in end-user pricing for the entire industry as average selling prices creep up and the tech substantially improves,” adds Ubrani.
