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From the outside, it looks like virtual and mixed reality is having a moment. Three new headsets have launched or been announced in the last month: Apple’s M5 Vision Pro, the Samsung Galaxy XR, and, just this week, Valve announced the Steam Frame. Given the marketing, you might assume that means Big Tech thinks this tech finally has some mass-market appeal. But, in the nearly 60 years since the first-ever VR headset, one thing remains true: this isn’t the next iPhone.
“Let’s put it this way,” says Gartner’s Tuong Huy Nguyen, a director analyst on Gartner’s emerging technologies and trends team. “Everyone who wants a VR headset already has one.”
It’s not a question of if people are buying these headsets. They are — just not in numbers that signal the tech is ready for primetime. According to IDC, Apple shipped roughly 400,000 Vision Pro headsets in 2024. That makes sense, given the $3,500 price tag. But Meta’s headsets are relatively affordable at $300 to $500 and make for popular Christmas gifts. Meta shipped roughly 5.6 million headsets in 2024. Comparatively, 1.2 billion smartphones were shipped during the same time frame.
And despite what might look like hype around the Vision Pro and the Galaxy XR, Counterpoint Research senior analyst Flora Tang said that premium headsets, or those that cost more than $1,000, will represent just 5 to 6 percent of total VR shipments in 2025. That aligns with IDC’s numbers, which estimate that these premium headsets will account for roughly 6.2 percent of the total market in 2024.
But for such a small market, Big Tech continues to bet big that this is the future. Meta’s Reality Labs, the segment behind its Quest headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses, just posted an operating loss of $4.4 billion on $470 million in sales during its third quarter.
So the real question is who is buying these headsets? And why are they so compelling to the biggest names in tech?
A new headset has appeared! Valve’s Steam Frame is appealing directly to gamers, but that’s still quite a niche audience. Photo by Everything Time Studio / The Verge
A stepping stone to smart glasses
Long story short: headsets are a bit of a red herring. These bulky devices aren’t really the end goal. Instead, it’s sleek, discreet smart glasses that let you meld the real world with the digital.
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