Virtual Reality (VR) headsets is an emerging tech category. Apple announced its Vision Pro headset and released it on February 2. Sony launched a headset in early 2023 to go with its PlayStation 5 console. Gaming, to be sure, is a big use case, but vendors are touting more practical uses like productivity and communication applications.
One of the leaders and longest players in this market is Meta Quest, formerly known as Oculus VR. Alkami Research examined the trend in users spending money on Meta Quest hardware and software since early 2019. Meta Quest is not a subscription service, so transactions are indicative of software purchases or direct hardware purchases. This data would not reflect a purchase of the hardware from a retailer, for example.
Meta Quest sees a strong year over year adoption in 2020 and in 2021 before showing a declining trend in 2022 and 2023. In all cases, there was a sales spike during the holiday season. Although Meta Quest was the first mover, as mentioned above, it now has to contend with Apple and Sony; the decline may be an indication of more entrants in the market versus a declining interest in virtual reality headsets overall.
Financial institutions should keep an interested eye on the space. If VR headsets do hit critical mass, consumers may expect immersive VR app experiences for interfaces like digital banking.
Alkami Telemetry Data for this figure was sourced from a panel of 22 financial institutions with more than 2.5 million account holders and over 1.5 billion transactions.
