SuperData trims 2016 outlook for Virtual Reality Sales

SuperData Research, a provider of insights and data on games world, reduced its virtual reality revenue outlook for 2016 by 30%. SuperData's analysts anticipated 2016 virtual reality revenues to be $5.1 billion during January. Currently, the experts at the company predict 2016 revenues from virtual reality to be $3.6 billion, lower than the earlier forecast by 30%.

Previously, the company overvalued the market share for mobile VR and PC that included instruments such as Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. However, this overestimation will not impact the company's spending estimation, which is expected to be $40 billion within the year 2020. The insights provider for games world expects to sell 16.8 million mobile VR instruments within 2016 end, as reported byVentureBeat.

The sale of mobile VR instruments includes cheapo Google-powered Cardboard phone holsters and Gear VR peripheral that costs $100 for Galaxy phones. According to Stephanie Llamas, an analyst at SuperData, the global games industry has an inadequate supply of VR-based graphics card and that PC market can sell roughly 2 million devices while PlayStation VR can sell nearly 2.6 million high-end instruments. She also pointed out to the limited number of PC customers as the main reason for outlook reduction. However, the launch of PSVR in 2016 end is expected to motivate PlayStation 4 users to join the PC market.

The company's previous forecast was based on the cost of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive having the price tag of $600 and $800 respectively. Stephanie Llamas told gamesindustry.biz, "Since we published our original figures, we have had a number of conversations with both hardware and software developers, as well as access to newly public information."

John Riccitiello, chief executive officer of Unity, said that the VR market may have a slow start in 2016, however, it is going to gain a bigger market share in the long run with the implementation of fresh technologies. The company anticipates mobile VR market to produce $15.6 billion while console's and PC markets are expected to generate $8.5 billion and $16.3 billion respectively within 2020.

Meanwhile, Nasdaq-quoted Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, who said in an interview that just like smartphones virtual reality technology will reach the global market within a period of 10 years and will dominate the technology market in the long run. However, analysts at Deutsche Bank predicts that VR technology will take a longer period to gain 100 million customers, compared to smartphones that reached the peak within a short period of 4 to 5 years.

SuperData Research reduced its forecast for revenues from virtual reality technology amid various challenges facing the global technology market. But, still the company remains confident with regard to its other business portfolio.