Google Daydream View set for 2.2m sales in 2017, but Gear VR still market leader – IHS

Google’s Daydream View headset sales are set to jump to 2.23m in 2017, according to IHS Markit, but Samsung’s Gear VR is still on track to become the market leader this year with sales of 4.1m.

This is a more conservative estimate than SuperData’s recent report, which pegs the Gear VR at 6.7m shipments this year and Daydream View at 3.5m, but IHS says the VR landscape is still "unsettled and fast-moving" and that newly released products from major competitors "can quickly alter the balance of the market."

As a result, the true impact of Google’s Daydream platform will only come to full fruition once smartphone manufacturers get to grips with the high-end requirements for Daydream-compatible handsets.

IHS says Samsung’s Gear VR bundling strategy is also more targeted this year, with the bundle offer having been dropped in a number of European territories.

"The arrival of competing platforms is playing out against a backdrop where Samsung has dialled down its previously aggressive pre-order bundling centred on its flagship smartphones and the Gear VR,” IHS Markit’s Piers Harding-Rolls said.

As a result, IHS Markit expects the unit sales of the Gear VR to decline year-on-year, despite remaining the biggest premium platform for VR across all the major brands. Whereas consumer sales hit 4.56m in 2016, this will fall by 9.6 per cent to 4.12m in 2017.

MCV recently spoke to the teams atHTC, Sony and Oculus about the first year of VRand where it needs to go in the future, as well asnDreams, Climax Studios, Criterion and Svrvive about what it takes to build a successful business around VR.