Worldwide spending on AR/VR solutions will be led by the commercial sectors, which will see its combined share of overall spending grow from less than 50% in 2020 to 68.8% in 2023. The commercial industries that are expected to spend the most on AR/VR in 2020 are retail ($1.5 billion) and discrete manufacturing ($1.4 billion). Fifteen industries are forecast to deliver CAGRs of more than 100% over the five-year forecast period, led by securities and investment services (181.4% CAGR) and banking (151.9% CAGR). Consumer spending on AR/VR will be greater than any single enterprise industry ($7.0 billion in 2020) but will grow at a much slower pace (39.5% CAGR). Public sector spending will maintain a fairly steady share of overall spending throughout the forecast.
“AR/VR commercial uptake will continue to expand as cost of entry declines and benefits from full deployment become more tangible. Focus is shifting from talking about technology benefits to showing real and measurable business outcomes, including productivity and efficiency gains, knowledge transfer, employee’s safety, and more engaging customer experiences,” said Giulia Carosella, research analyst, European Industry Solutions, Customer Insights & Analysis.
Commercial use cases will account for nearly half of all AR/VR spending in 2020, led by training ($2.6 billion) and industrial maintenance ($914 million) use cases. Consumer spending will be led by two large use cases: VR games ($3.3 billion) and VR feature viewing ($1.4 billion). However, consumer spending will only account for a little over one third of all AR/VR spending in 2020 with public sector use cases making up the balance. The AR/VR use cases that are forecast to see the fastest growth in spending over the 2019-2023 forecast period are lab and field (post secondary) (190.1% CAGR), lab and field (K-12) (168.7% CAGR), and onsite assembly and safety (129.5% CAGR). Seven other use cases will also have five-year CAGRs greater the 100%. Training, with a 61.8% CAGR, is forecast to become the largest use case in terms of spending in 2023.