IDC is forecasting that worldwide revenues for AR and VR will reach $13.9 billion in 2017, which is an increase of 130.5% over 2016 when the revenues were $6.1 billion.
AR and VR spending is expected to rapidly increase over the next few years, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 198.0% over the 2015-2020 forecast period and totalling $143.3 billion in 2020.
For the forecast period, the consumer market will be the largest AR and VR segment with worldwide spending on hardware, software, and services expected to reach $6.2 billion in 2017, an increase of 130.5% over 2016. AR games will experience a CAGR of 287.4%, making it one of the fastest growing AR/VR categories.
The industry segments that will attract the largest investments in 2017 are retail showcasing ($461 million), product development ($267 million), and industrial maintenance ($249 million).
This year, discrete manufacturing and retail are expected to be the only two industries spending more than $1.0 billion on AR and VR solutions.
Retail will move ahead of discrete manufacturing to become the top industry for AR and VR spending in 2020, driven by a five-year CAGR of 238.7%. In number three position in 2020 will be process manufacturing overtaking personal and consumer services.
Largely due to consumer uptake of games and paid content, spending on VR systems, including viewers, software, consulting services, and systems integration services, are forecast to be greater than AR-related spending in 2017 and 2018 but after 2018, AR spending will surge ahead.
The US will deliver $4.3 billion in AR/VR spending in 2017, followed by Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) at $2.6 billion and Western Europe at nearly $2.5 billion. The largest segment of AR/VR spending in 2017 will be consumer market followed by personal and consumer services in Japan and discrete manufacturing in the US and Western Europe. By 2020, discrete manufacturing will become the top spending segment in the US while retail will become the second largest segment in Japan.
