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The AR Industry Landscape, Q2 2017

The AR Industry Landscape, Q2 2017

The Venture Reality Fund has released its AR industry landscape for the second quarter of 2017. The report highlights nearly 150 companies developing infrastructure, tools, platforms and apps for the AR ecosystem and depicts overall industry growth, increased investment and expanding international impact.

“Over the past quarter, the AR industry witnessed several notable moves by major players including Facebook and Apple, which immediately led to a robust increase in developer activity as well as extensive coverage in the market,” said Tipatat Chennavasin, co-founder and general partner at The VR Fund. “These strides are reflective of rising interest in AR driven primarily by device infrastructure and SDK tools.”

The VR Fund evaluated more than 2,000 companies for the landscape, and those selected meet a certain criteria of funding, revenue, mainstream coverage and/or major partnerships.

You can view the above graphic full size here

 

Key Insights:

  • Activity in Q2 was strongest in the areas of device infrastructure and SDK tool development, indicating that AR is still evolving as an industry. These efforts will continue to help advance the growth of apps for consumer and enterprise use in upcoming quarters
  • There was over a 60% increase in the number of companies focused on developing AR applications for enterprise from Q1
  • Microsoft Hololens and Google Tango helped lay the groundwork and educate the market about the capabilities of AR, despite limited distribution of their developer kits. Further advancement of these platforms is expected in the near future in response to Apple’s ARKit
  • Google’s advanced Tango technology is proven to deliver an excellent experience capable of augmenting the entire space around a user. However, the existing fragmentation within the Android ecosystem handicaps the rapid development and wide adoption of Tango
  • The introduction of Facebook’s camera platform and Apple’s ARKit inspired an immediate uptick in activity and increased attention for the AR space, particularly related to consumer applications. Early developer response indicates that Apple is becoming a major force in the AR platform war
  • Apple’s move will lead to accelerated growth and experimentation with mobile AR applications. However, the input experience needs to evolve beyond touch to include other modes such as voice

 

You can watch Chennavasin’s presentation at last month’s VR Connects San Francisco here. The next event in the Connects series is XR Connects Helsinki 2017 on 19th and 20th September, with more than 60 expert speakers.

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