IDTechEx: AR/VR/MR market to reach US$30 billion by 2030

IDTechEx predicts that by 2030 the augmented, virtual, and mixed reality market will be over US$30 billion.

With COVID-19 limiting physical interaction, virtual communication and interaction will be the norm for many years to come, a release from the company explains.

Although seen as futuristic by some, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality devices have shown they have an important part to play in many different industries.

Through deep analysis of both key players and technologies, IDTechEx's most recent report on augmented and virtual reality, Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality 2020-2030: Forecasts, Markets and Technologies, provides the trends this market will face in the coming decade.

Over the past two decades, there have been big strides in the technological development of XR products.

In the early '90s, a number of headsets were released that allowed the user to view a video on a headset from an external device.

Then, in the next decade, devices such as the Google Glass Explorer were released.

These captured the imagination of many people, and it was one of the first 'augmented reality' products available to consumers and, although this did not take off, it paved the way for other products to be developed.

Later in the decade, more VR and AR products were released. In 2019, Magic Leap released its first product after years of funding.

Oculus also released a VR headset that does not need to be connected to a computer – the Quest – proving that VR does not need to be tethered to a computer.

In IDTechEx's portfolio of market research reports, there are two which focus on augmented, virtual, and mixed reality products: These are Optics and Displays in AR, VR, and MR 2020-2030: Technologies, Players and Markets and its parent market research report mentioned above.

Together, these reports provide an overview of the whole market, as well as the key technologies to their wider adoption (optics and display technologies).

The report parent report covers one of the key markets of the future: the AR/VR/MR market. AR, VR and MR products are used in many different settings, for example, for day-to-day workflow management, and on production lines.

This market, which IDTechEx forecasts predict to be over $30 billion by 2030, will impact many different industries, and future innovations will continue its growth in the wearables market.

The other report offers a concise overview of the markets of optics and displays in both the AR/MR and VR technologies. It includes the forecasts for both the optical and display markets in AR/MR and VR markets.