With the recent news of Sony’s PlayStation VR reaching the one million units sold milestone, it seems like Sony is the king of the VR space. Yet according to a survey by IDC, it seems like Sony might not have that throne.
The survey, which covers Q1 of 2017, tracked how many units were shipped worldwide. What’s surprising is that even though Sony recently hit that milestone it is actually Samsung and its Gear VR headset that own the market. On the chart shown below, you can see that Samsung has 21.5% of the AR and VR headset market while Sony is right behind at 18.8%. The table below shows the top 5 manufacturers shipments and market share of the VR scene.
Samsung’s Gear VR headset coming out in November of 2015 compared to PlayStation’s headset coming out in October of last year, Samsung has the head start in the VR headset market. This might help with Samsung securing the early adopters who were hungry for a VR experience.
The price of the Gear VR might have helped with Samsung’s dominance. At the time of writing the Gear VR is available for around $70 while the PlayStation VR is available for $550. This does not include the extra costs for both headsets with the Gear needing a top of the line phone to use while the PlayStation VR requires both a PS4 and a PS4 camera.
Congratulations for Playstation for selling one million units of the VR headset even if they don’t have the lead on the market. It is still an accomplishment. With Samsung’s partnership with Oculus and E3 on the horizon, here’s to hoping that we see great things coming from both of these companies.
