2023 was an interesting year for virtual reality headsets. Meta's Quest was the popular option coming into the year but then Apple announced the Realty Pro, making the Quest feel like a toy.
I've analyzed Quest sales by tracking downloads of its companion app over the last few years, as Christmas is the Quest's biggest day of activations, and this year was no different.
The real question is, are people buying the Quest or waiting for the Vision Pro?
Let's have a look at the downloads.
According to our App Intelligence, the Meta Quest app was downloaded 1.8M times from the App Store and Google Play this December with most downloads coming in on Christmas day. That's a modest 3% increase from last year, so things are still growing.
60% of the downloads came from the App Store and 40% from Google Play, which lines up with previous years, and also means the Vision Pro hasn't crushed the Quest yet.
But things look a little different when we zoom out. Our estimates show Meta Quest was downloaded 6M times in all of 2023, marking a substantial decrease from 9M in 2022 and 7M in 2021.
Maybe the Quest is just failing to maintain its momentum?
I'm not bullish on VR headsets just yet, personally, but that's mainly because I don't have any practical use for them. Let's see how things change when Apple starts shipping headsets in a few months.
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