It was estimated that in 1998, LaserDisc players were in approximately 2% of U.S. households (roughly two million). By comparison, in 1999, players were in 10% of Japanese households and a total of 3.6 million LaserDisc players were sold there. A total of 16.8 million LaserDisc players were sold worldwide, of which 9.5 million were sold by Pioneer.
VR headset sales were 6.3 million shipped by the end of 2016 and another 1.5 million in the first quarter of 2017.
First quarter of 2017 VR headset sales.
Gear VR: 782,000
Playstation VR: 375,000
Google DayDream: 170,000
HTC Vive: 95,000
Oculus Rift: 64,000
VR not including Google cardboard type units will likely still be under the old laser disc player total of 16.8 million units at the end of 2017. However, the ramp in VR seems likely to be below more optimistic forecasts.
VR with the current generation through 2020 will likely be below 10% of household penetration in the US, Europe and other main markets.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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