The latest Omdia report has revealed the size of the consumer virtual reality (VR) market in 2025 and beyond.
The consumer VR market faced another challenging year in 2024, with global headset sales dropping 10 percent to 6.9 million units, compared to 7.7 million in 2023. Further contractions are expected in 2025 before a potential rebound in 2026.
George Jijiashvili, Senior Principal Analyst at Omdia, highlighted the lackluster impact of the Apple Vision Pro’s much-anticipated debut. “Momentum has faded, and developer interest remains low, ten months after its launch,” he noted.
Similarly, early sales of Meta’s entry-level Quest 3S have failed to drive significant growth, reinforcing the view that VR remains a niche market in its current state.
The active VR headset user base dropped by 8 percent to 21.9 million in 2024, driven primarily by the limited number of Quest 2 owners upgrading their devices. Despite the Quest 2 selling over 20 million units since its launch in 2020, its successors have struggled to maintain consumer interest.
Spending on VR content reached $904 million in 2024 and is expected to grow to $1.3 billion by 2029. However, this remains a small fraction compared to the $37.4 billion projected for games console content in 2024, underscoring VR’s fledgling status in the broader gaming and entertainment market.
The decline in consumer engagement, coupled with a lack of compelling new content and developer concerns about return on investment, has led to a cautious outlook for the VR industry. Device manufacturers appear increasingly reluctant to invest heavily in the current iteration of VR and mixed reality technologies.
The focus is shifting toward lightweight augmented reality (AR) glasses that provide all-day, multimodal AI capabilities. This approach aims to normalize face-based spatial computing and could ultimately drive broader adoption of VR in the future.
