Huawei VR is first with 360-degree sound
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Following in the footsteps of Samsung, Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer, unveiled a virtual reality headset at its Shanghai event Friday, Engadget reports.
The Huawei VR closely resembles Samsung’s Gear VR, and uses its flagship smartphone devices, the P9, P9 Plus, and Mate 8, to power the device. Notably, the new VR gear will come with 360-degree sound, which Huawei claims is the first headset to offer the feature.
Huawei VR will launch with plenty of content, including 4,000 free movies, 40 free games, 350 panoramic images, and more than 150 panoramic tours. Huawei is yet to announce a price or order date.
Smartphone powered VR headsets will be the primary driving force behind consumer adoption of AR and VR technology. So it makes sense that Huawei would attempt to tap into the market, which until now Samsung has owned.
All eyes will now be looking at Apple to see whether they will have a device in the works. The company is believed to be working with a team of engineers to develop a VR solution.
The VR market is poised to take off, but there is still plenty more to learn about the world of virtual reality hardware.
BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on virtual reality hardware that provides proprietary forecasts for VR headset shipments and revenue and estimates average selling price over the next five years. The report also takes a look at the different types of VR headset technology now on the market, discusses which categories will win out, and looks at several use cases for VR headsets, including gaming and other.
BI Intelligence
Here are some key points from the report:
- Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are debuting on the consumer market and set to launch an advanced and immersive content platform. We estimate shipments of VR headsets will grow at a swift 99% compound annual growth rate between 2015 and 2020.
- VR shipments will create a $2.8 billion hardware market by 2020, up from an estimated $37 million market this year.
- VR headsets are a fairly low-cost consumer electronics category, and this will help drive adoption. The devices will be priced similarly to smartwatches and also need to pair with another standalone computing device.
- Demand for VR headsets will be fueled by gaming on both mobile and console devices. There are 1.2 billion gamers worldwide, including nearly 1 billion mobile gamers alone. This creates a direct, addressable market for VR headsets.
- Beyond gaming, VR will be an important platform for streaming content and even shopping. Oculus has already experimented with Story Studio, a platform for VR movie creation. In addition, many consumers claim the VR experience will drive them to shop more online rather than in stores.
In full, the report:
- Forecasts annual shipments of VR headsets between 2015 and 2020.
- Sizes the market for VR headset shipments by revenue and anticipates how the VR headset average selling price will trend.
- Breaks down VR headset shipments by category, including traditional VR headsets, smartphone-mounted VR headsets, and gaming-console headsets.
- Pinpoints the gaming console market as a key driver of demand for VR headsets.
- Discusses the opportunity for VR content creation in gaming, streaming video, and shopping.
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The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the emerging world of virtual reality hardware.