Apple Vision Pro should ‘inject some positive energy’ into China’s lagging VR shipments

China’s virtual reality (VR) market shipments dropped 61% year-over-year (YoY) in 2023, marking its most significant downturn in the past five years, according to new data from Counterpoint Research. 

Conversely, augmented reality (AR) smart glasses shipments in the country surged 67% YoY, according to the research group. However, the upcoming release of the Apple Vision Pro should “inject some positive energy into China’s VR segment in 2024, says Counterpoint.

Shipments of Pico VR headsets in China witnessed a 19% sequential decline during the second half of 2023, severely hurt by its parent company ByteDance’s strategic shift to reduce investments in XR. Sony’s shipments tumbled 46% sequentially in the second half of 2023 as the sales momentum of the PSVR 2 faltered in China. Counterpoint says that DPVR experienced an uptick in sales during H2 2023, with an impressive 121% sequential growth, primarily due to its focus on providing solutions for the enterprise market.

In contrast to the weakness in China’s VR segment, China’s AR Smart Glasses market thrived in 2023, experiencing a remarkable 64% YoY growth, the research group notes. This growth can be attributed to several factors, “including the aggressive release of new products by leading manufacturers throughout the year, advancements in optical technologies and ergonomic design, enhanced compatibility with more devices, as well as manufacturers’ offline expansion and increased marketing investments,” according to Counterpoint.

The Chinese industry anticipates that the availability of the Vision Pro in the Chinese market in 2024, along with innovative applications developed by Chinese developers, will inject some positive energy into this segment. Chinese internet giants such as Alibaba and its subsidiary Dingtalk, Tencent, Trip.com, and gaming company miHoYo, have all announced plans to develop spatial computing-based applications for Apple’s Vision Pro. 

Nevertheless, Counterpoint expects the Vision Pro, as well as other new VR/MR(Mixed Reality) products set to be released in China in 2024, to only have a limited impact on boosting the sales volume of VR products. 

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