09 Aug 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Prague — Augmented and virtual reality markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will grow strongly in the next five years, posting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 177.8% over the 2016-2020 period, according to IDC's new Worldwide Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending Guide . The market will thus expand from a relatively modest value of $ 187.47 million this year to reach $5.54 billion in 2020.

“The advent of augmented and virtual reality can be easily compared with the era when mobile phones were first introduced on the CEE market in the ‘90s,” says Ivana Slaharova, a research analyst for IDC's Customer Insights and Analysis. “With increasing competition and market penetration, we assume AR and VR devices will become affordable cutting-edge technologies for a wider spectrum of traditional consumers and for many industries in the near future.”

At present, the consumer segment accounts for the largest share of spending in this market, at over $7 million in augmented reality and nearly $90 million in virtual reality so far in 2016. In the business sector, the largest share of spending is attributed to the manufacturing and transportation verticals — in particular, industrial maintenance, logistics, and package delivery management. In addition, IDC expects very dynamic growth in the retail vertical, with a forecast CAGR of 189.7 % by 2020.

"After many years of unfulfilled expectations, virtual and augmented reality technology has reached a ‘sweet spot’, where acceptable performance and quality of experience meets affordable pricing,” says Emir Halilovic, IDC’s program director with Telecoms and Networking. “With new hardware as the foundation, application developers and systems integrators will build strong new propositions enabling digital transformation of many work-related activities, as well as facets of our daily lives.”

From a regional perspective, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), the United States, and Western Europe will account for three quarters of worldwide AR/VR revenues in 2016. Overall market value in the three regions will be comparable early in the forecast period, but the U.S. is expected to pull well ahead of the other two regions by 2020. Because AR/VR technology is still in the initial of adoption, every region is expected to see annual growth of more than 100% throughout the forecast period.