Augmented and Virtual Reality Markets Expected to Reach All Time Highs

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In 2022, the augmented and virtual reality market is expected to reach a market size of $209.2 billion. But a new report from Zion Market Research, just recently released, actually gave the AR and VR global markets a higher than expected valuation: at around $26.7 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach approximately $814.7 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 63.01% between 2019 and 2025. So it appears that the markets are exceeding prior expectations.  The AR and VR markets are usually grouped together but there are differences in the AR and VM technologies themselves. Each has a strong market share on its own but can also be used in conjunction, which is called augmented virtuality (AV), according to PC Magazine.    Active tech companies in the markets this week include Vuzix Corporation, QUALCOMM Incorporated, Lumentum Holdings Inc., Apple Inc., NVIDIA Corporation.

Zion summarizes that the two biggest global markets for the technologies are North America and Europe. North America is expected to hold the largest share in AR and VR due to the rising demand in the media and entertainments markets, while Europe will hold a substantial share due to early adoption by EU consumers. It concludes that Asia pacific should likely have the highest CAGR in the future.

Vuzix Corporation, a leading supplier of smart glasses and augmented reality (AR) technology and products is pleased to announce the debut of Vuzix' next generation enterprise smart glasses, the M400, one of the first products made commercially available using the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 platform.

Since the Company's collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, was announced in May 2018, the teams have been actively engaged to develop the first Snapdragon XR1-based enterprise smart glasses. 

"Snapdragon XR1 is the first dedicated XR platform from Qualcomm Technologies targeted to the class of devices that Vuzix has mastered. Vuzix' focus on wearability, experience, and form factor combined with XR1 will drive smart glasses to the next level," said Hugo Swart, head of XR, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "Qualcomm Technologies is a strong believer in the smart glasses segment for the enterprise. We look forward to seeing our collaboration with Vuzix help scale adoption in enterprises and become a mainstream device to help increase employee productivity in the new era of AI and immersive computing."

The Snapdragon XR1 platform integrates Qualcomm Technologies' heterogeneous computing architecture including an ARM-based multicore Central Processing Unit (CPU), vector processor, graphics processing unit (GPU) and Qualcomm AI Engine. The Snapdragon XR1 allows for power efficient on-device processing of vision-based machine learning algorithms that can help with key Augmented Reality (AR) use cases like superior pose prediction, object classification, etc.  The Snapdragon XR1 platform was also designed to deliver an immersive user interface (UI) experience, with features such as native voice processing, motion tracking, head tracking and more.

The new product, currently referred to as the Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses, is expected to enter volume production in summer 2019. Further details and pricing will be announced this spring as well as the commencement of an early engagement program for select developers and customers. Even with all its new capabilities and features, the product will be physically, mechanically and for most software 100% compatible with Vuzix' existing M-Series products.