IDC: Chinese AR/VR Field Shipped Over 500,000 Units in H1

Consulting firm IDC China reported on September 2 that in the second quarter of 2022, China shipped 309,000 AR/VR headsets, including 12,000 units of AR devices and 297,000 units of VR devices.

Q2 saw the shipment of 273,000 standalone VR units in China, up 19.2% year-on-year, while tethered VR saw shipments totaling 24,000 units, down 22.1% year-on-year, according to the report. Standalone devices offer independent computing power, while tethered products rely on other devices for computing power.

In the first half of 2022, standalone VR devices saw shipments totaling 502,000 units in China. Shipping channel composition has changed significantly, with e-commerce having accounted for 64.4%. The number of shipments of the top manufacturers in Douyin Live Stream is already comparable to traditional e-commerce platforms. In the offline channel, for the first time, the manufacturer brand stores appeared in the first half of T1 and T2 level cities in succession. To a certain extent, this enhances brand awareness and drives online shipments. The number of fusion retail stores has grown significantly, with strong sales performance of large supermarket counters.

In the first half of 2022, tethered VR devices saw shipments totaling 56,000 units, with a downward trend in tethered shipments compared to the standalone VR market. Its share of overall VR shipments has declined from 33.2% in Q2 of 2021 to 8.2% in Q2 of 2022. The most mainstream scenario is currently underline recreation and education and training, with continued demand in medical, offices and other scenarios in the future.

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At present, standalone AR primarily focuses on commercial market industry with fragmented shipments and high average unit price. In the case of Microsoft, LLVISION and other manufacturers in China, they basically provide supporting services or solutions when shipping, in addition to hardware. Procurement users are mainly in universities, intelligent manufacturing factories, exhibition parks, and other areas. In the consumer market, domestic manufacturer Inmo also officially launched during H1 on Jingdong Mall, mainly to promote consumer-grade products.

Chinese manufacturers Rokid, FFALCON, OPPO, and others all made efforts in the consumer AR glasses market in the price range of 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan ($290 – $434) in the first half of the year. The new product released by Nreal in August marked the official entry of its products into China. Although the current quarterly volume is in the order of thousands of units, it is a major breakthrough for consumer AR glasses.