Meta Quest 2 First VR headset to cross 10 mn shipments

Meta Quest 2 (formerly Oculus Quest 2) cumulatively shipped more than 10 million headsets by the end of 2021, according to Counterpoint Research’s XR (AR & VR headsets) Model Tracker. The US contributed 70% to Quest 2’s shipments followed by Europe with roughly 20%. As a popular tech gift for children and grandparents, half of its shipments occurred during the holiday season in the last quarter of 2020 and 2021. Meta succeeded by offering great hardware at a reasonable and competitive price starting at $299. It also focused on offering continuous improvements through monthly software updates.

We believe Meta’s next major Quest device since 2020 will be launched in 2023. It makes sense, as currently there is no significant hardware advancement in VR headsets for the affordable segment. Also, the consumer is holding on to VR devices longer.

While Quest 2’s cumulative shipments are 1.5 times higher than its next biggest competitor, Sony PSVR, it will face more competition from the highly anticipated PSVR 2, as well as the devices that DPVR and Pico launch in 2022. We saw an increase in DPVR’s presence in overseas markets in 2021 and it will continue to expand in 2022. Since acquiring Pico, ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, is pouring a lot of resources to strengthen the Pico brand with an increased focus on content as well as through faster staff hiring, superior consumer VR hardware and competitive pricing.

We estimate that Meta will ship nearly 12 million VR headsets in 2022, including the upcoming Project Cambria product, which will be launched later in 2022 to showcase Meta’s potential capabilities. However, more than 80% of the volume will be driven by Quest 2, which will be available throughout the year at a price point that has proven to be a sweet spot for VR headsets.

CT Bureau