A New Turning Point in the VR/AR Market: Restructuring the Metaverse Ecosystem One Year After the Launch of Apple Vision Pro
Editor
New Competitive Landscape in the Metaverse Market
As of January 2026, the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) market is at a historic turning point. According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, global VR/AR headset shipments in 2025 increased by 28% year-on-year, reaching 12.4 million units, with the market size hitting $31.2 billion. Notably, the premium market has seen rapid growth following the launch of Apple Vision Pro. Despite its high price of $3,499, Vision Pro sold approximately 450,000 units in 2025, setting a new standard in the premium VR/AR market.
The launch of Apple’s Vision Pro, based in Cupertino, California, has triggered a paradigm shift across the entire industry, beyond just being a new product release. Meta Platforms, based in Menlo Park, California, has maintained about a 75% market share in the consumer market with its Quest series, but Apple’s entry has created a new competitive landscape in the high-end enterprise market. According to IDC data, the premium VR/AR device market, priced over $1,000, grew by 156% year-on-year in 2025, directly reflecting the impact of Apple Vision Pro.
Samsung Electronics of South Korea is also playing a significant role in this market. In the second half of 2025, Samsung launched the Galaxy VR Pro, entering the Android-based high-end VR market. Priced at $1,299, the Galaxy VR Pro features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset and supports 4K resolution. Highlighting its proprietary OLED display technology and integration with the Galaxy ecosystem, Samsung achieved sales of 150,000 units within three months of launch. This is analyzed as a response to consumer demand for a third alternative between Apple and Meta.
Sony, based in Tokyo, Japan, is also preparing to enter the standalone VR device market, building on the success of PlayStation VR2. With the release of PlayStation VR2 Pro in 2025, Sony solidified its unique position in the gaming-focused VR market. The $599 PSVR2 Pro offers HDR support and a 120Hz refresh rate, differentiating itself through exclusive gaming content. Sony’s VR devices sold approximately 1.8 million units in 2025, maintaining a dominant market share in the gaming VR sector.
Rapid Growth and New Opportunities in the Enterprise Market
The most notable change in the VR/AR market is the explosive growth of the enterprise (B2B) market. According to Gartner Research, the enterprise VR/AR market size in 2025 increased by 67% year-on-year, reaching $8.9 billion. Adoption is accelerating particularly in the manufacturing, healthcare, and education sectors. Boeing fully implemented a HoloLens-based AR system on its aircraft assembly lines in 2025, achieving a 25% reduction in assembly time. Additionally, Johns Hopkins Hospital announced a 15% improvement in the success rate of complex brain surgeries using a surgical AR system.
Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 maintains a dominant position in the enterprise AR market. Priced at $3,500, approximately 120,000 units of HoloLens 2 were sold to enterprise customers in 2025, receiving high praise particularly in remote collaboration and industrial training. Microsoft has announced the launch of HoloLens 3 in the first half of 2026, promising enhanced performance and reduced weight. The new HoloLens will expand the field of view from the existing 52 degrees to 70 degrees and reduce weight by 20%.
Magic Leap is also gaining attention in the enterprise market. Magic Leap 2, based in Plantation, Florida, is priced at $2,295, making it more accessible than HoloLens. Magic Leap has expanded its presence in the enterprise AR solution market by forming partnerships with large corporations like AT&T and Cisco in 2025. The utilization of Magic Leap 2 is increasing particularly in remote technical support and employee training, with enterprise customer revenue growing by 89% year-on-year in 2025.
Pico, a subsidiary of ByteDance in China, is also accelerating its entry into the enterprise market. The Pico 4 Enterprise, priced competitively at $899, targets the SME market. Pico’s market share is rapidly increasing in the Asia-Pacific region, recording a 15% share in enterprise VR device shipments in 2025. Pico offers integrated solutions to enterprise customers by combining its own cloud platform with AI-based content creation tools.
In South Korea, the enterprise VR/AR market is also experiencing rapid growth. Hyundai Motor Company introduced a VR-based quality inspection system at its Ulsan plant in 2025, improving inspection accuracy by 30%. SK Telecom launched ‘T-VR Workspace,’ a remote VR collaboration solution utilizing 5G networks, providing services to over 300 domestic companies. This solution generates an average revenue of 1.5 million won per company per month, attracting attention as a new revenue source for telecom companies.
Technological Innovation and Future Prospects
The core trend in the VR/AR market in 2026 is overcoming technological limitations and improving user experience. Nvidia, based in San Jose, California, has significantly enhanced VR/AR-specific rendering technology in its RTX 50 series GPUs. The new ‘Omniverse VR’ technology implements graphics that are indistinguishable from reality through real-time ray tracing. Nvidia’s RTX 5090 supports 8K rendering at 120 frames per second in VR environments, a threefold performance improvement over existing models.
Qualcomm, based in San Diego, California, is expected to improve both performance and battery efficiency of VR/AR devices with the release of its Snapdragon XR3 platform in the first half of 2026. The new chipset improves AI processing performance by 200% compared to its predecessor and reduces power consumption by 35%. This is expected to extend the continuous usage time of VR devices from the current 2-3 hours to 5-6 hours. Qualcomm announced that its XR chipset revenue in 2025 increased by 145% year-on-year, reaching $2.3 billion.
Display technology is also rapidly advancing. Samsung Display began mass production of VR-specific displays with 4K resolution using micro OLED technology in 2025. These displays are 90% thinner and have a 10 times faster response rate compared to existing LCDs. The pixel density exceeds 3,000 pixels per inch, making individual pixels indistinguishable to the human eye. Samsung Display expects VR display revenue to reach $1.5 billion in 2026.
Significant advancements are also being made in software. Meta launched ‘Horizon OS 3.0’ in 2025, introducing AI-based automatic content generation features. Users can create 3D environments and objects with simple text commands, with an average creation time of under 30 seconds. User-generated content utilizing this feature accounted for 35% of all content on Meta’s VR platform in 2025. Meta announced that content sales on the Horizon Store reached $800 million in 2025.
Apple also introduced innovative features in visionOS 2.0. The new ‘Spatial Computing’ interface allows users to perform complex tasks with just their gaze and gestures. Eye-tracking accuracy has improved to 99.7%, enabling precise interactions. Apple announced that the average daily usage time of Vision Pro users is 3.2 hours, 60% higher than existing VR devices. This is attributed to the enhanced user experience and a variety of productivity apps.
Chinese VR/AR companies are also accelerating technological innovation. Varjo, based in Beijing, launched the ‘Varjo Aero 3’ VR headset in 2025, offering a 210-degree field of view identical to human vision. Priced at $5,990, this product targets the professional market, attracting significant interest in fields such as architectural design and film production. Varjo announced that its revenue in the professional VR market increased by 78% year-on-year in 2025.
From a market outlook perspective, Goldman Sachs predicts that the global VR/AR market will grow to $45 billion by 2026 and $120 billion by 2030. The enterprise market’s growth rate is expected to drive overall market growth, with an annual average growth rate of 45%. McKinsey Consulting analyzes that VR/AR technology will create $1.3 trillion in economic value for the global GDP by 2030.
Interest in the VR/AR market continues from an investment perspective. Venture capital investment in global VR/AR startups reached $12.7 billion in 2025, a 23% increase year-on-year. Startups combining AI and VR/AR are particularly attracting investor attention. Silicon Valley’s ‘Reality AI’ raised $150 million in a Series B round in 2025, valued at $1.5 billion.
In conclusion, the VR/AR market in 2026 is entering a new growth phase through increased technological maturity and the spread of practical use cases. The growth of the premium market triggered by Apple’s market entry and the rapid expansion of the enterprise market are expected to be key drivers in the industry over the next few years. Innovations in user experience through the convergence with AI technology and cloud VR services based on 5G/6G networks are expected to create a new paradigm in the market. As hardware performance improves and the content ecosystem expands simultaneously, VR/AR is becoming an essential tool in daily life and work, beyond just gaming and entertainment.
