News briefing

 

Apple held the WWDC 2023 conference in the early morning of the 6th and released the first mixed-reality glasses of MR, namely Vision Pro. The price of MR is tagged at USD 3,499, about NT$107,000, and will be launched on the market early next year.

 

Impact analysis

 

According to a survey done by TrendForce, “2021 will be a year of explosive growth for head-mounted AR/VR devices as the demands for remote communication are brought about by epidemic dividends. However, shipments of global AR/VR devices will begin to drop in the face of challenges from the overall economic environment in 2022, with a decline of 7.6%, and the number, if translated, can reach about 9.1 million units.” In 2023, the economic outlook is still grim, which is not conducive to the recovery of the consumer market, whereas AR/VR has not yet displayed any killer application like the stimulation that the ChatGPT has had on the application market of AI. As such, it’s estimated that the AR/VR device market will continue to decline this year, reaching a total of 7.5 million units. However, TrendForce is still optimistic about the future AR/VR market, and the market is expected to grow significantly by 2025, with an annual growth rate of shipments reaching an extent of almost 40%.

 

Currently, it is well known that the mainboard and flexible board used by Apple Vision Pro are supplied by Zhen Ding Tech of Taiwan, which is expected to be marketed early next year. Therefore, the device can pour revenue into Taiwan's PCB industry in, at the earliest, the 4th quarter. However, Vision Pro should not, for the time being, be targeting the consumer market (the current mainstream price in the market is between USD 200 - USD 400) as viewed from a price aspect and will only attract the favor of some groups of people. Therefore, it’s concluded that the shipment volume won’t be significant, and the strength of its contribution to the market promotion and revenue should be limited. Furthermore, it’s estimated that it’ll still take two to three generations of product changes before there will be a chance to lower the price to the consumer level and witness market performance like that of Apple's other products.

 

Source: TrendForce