How far is China's VR industry from the 100 billion-class market? In fact, only these two points

Our reporter Li Zhengfen reported

What is Virtual Reality (VR)? Some people believe that no matter what kind of judgments are made, it is undeniable that it is the next generation computing platform. Some people think that it is an irreversible force that subverts traditional industries or promotes the transformation and upgrading of traditional enterprises; others still think that it is a connection. The Necessary Way of Deep Transformation of Traditional Industries . In any case, the virtual reality industry has entered the world's most cutting-edge ranks.

2016 is the first year of virtual reality. To be precise, it is the first year of the virtual reality industry, or the first year of application of virtual reality.

Many market research institutions are optimistic about the prospects of virtual reality industry. In the newly released "Virtual Reality Industry Report: Spring 2017", market research firm Greenlight Insights predicts that by the end of 2017, the total revenue of the virtual reality industry will reach 7.2 billion U.S. dollars, of which hardware products will be VR heads-up. The equipment will contribute 4.7 billion U.S. dollars. Goldman Sachs predicts that the virtual reality market will reach 80 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. Citigroup expects to reach the trillion market by 2035.

Content and talent are the two major bottlenecks in development

In recent years, with continuous breakthroughs in image processing calculations, display and sensing technologies, and display technologies, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed-reality industries have developed rapidly and opened up the general consumer market.

Last year, the virtual reality industry was officially written into the national "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" outline.

According to report, in 2016, China’s shipment of virtual reality head-mounted displays was 300,000 units, and its sales volume was already the second largest in the world, second only to the United States. "This year, with the promotion of products, content tends to be rich and other factors, the sales of virtual reality market will have greater growth. According to forecast, by 2020, the scale of China's virtual reality market will reach 100 billion yuan." Virtual Reality Industry Alliance Deputy Secretary-General Hu Chunmin said.

"After 30 to 40 years of development, virtual reality has made remarkable achievements in the fields of aerospace, equipment manufacturing and other fields, and has gradually become a new information support technology for various industries. From this, it can be foreseen that virtual reality will continue to exist in various fields. The application of various industries, namely 'virtual reality +', will become a major direction for future development.” Zhao Zhaoping, director of the State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology and Systems and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, held the Global Virtual Reality Industry Summit and Zhongguancun Virtual Reality recently Industry Park launch ceremony.

If "Internet +" is the informationization of traditional enterprises, then "VR+" is the upgrading of traditional industries.

In education, VR has brought disruptive innovation to traditional education. For example, in a geography class, students can see deserts turning into oasis and oasis becoming deserts through virtual images. In history lessons, students can see how dinosaurs evolved through virtual observation; in chemistry classes, explosive experiments can also be realized with the aid of virtual reality. To be done.

With the development of virtual reality technology, especially equipment, and the reduction of consumer prices, virtual reality has gradually entered the large-scale consumption areas such as entertainment, tourism, and education. “In the future, virtual reality may form a virtual reality for large consumer industries and industries. There are three types of industries: the real industry and the specialized virtual reality industry," said Zhao Yuping.

Among them, with the VR entering the medical, urban planning, equipment manufacturing and other fields, there will be a large number of virtual reality application systems in these industries, and gradually become a new engine for the development of these industries. At the same time, VR also promotes the upgrading of related industries. "It can be said that the development of various industries for virtual reality is rigid." Zhao Yuping said that with the development of VR technology, will form a specialized virtual reality industry, this industry includes VR technology, equipment and so on.

Zhao Yu said with a flat voice, from the perspective of the next step in the development of virtual reality, the VR industry will face two major development bottlenecks. First, the productivity of VR content production is low. Second, domestic VR design talents, research talents, industrialization talents are very shortage.

Zhao Yuping said that the development of a new industry, especially the high-tech industry, often requires the following conditions: First, the need for sustained breakthroughs in key technologies to provide support. Whether it is the improvement of virtual reality equipment or the expansion of the new field of virtual reality, it requires continuous technological innovation to support it. Second, it is urgent for all types of virtual reality talents to support it. There are many talents, for example, technological innovation talents, product R&D talents, design talents, and some talents in development are very large.

"If the technical conditions in the future can't keep up, the mass consumption sector may experience a low tide, but the industry's development process always has a low tide and a high tide. The development of any new industry is like this." Zhao Yuping believes that the future should pay more attention to VR Industrial applications of technology, such as the application of VR in education, medical care, equipment manufacturing R&D, and smart city urban planning.

Investment is optimistic about segmentation

At present, what is the development of the VR industry? It is understood that before 2016, Samsung, HTC, Facebook, Google and other companies entered the field in advance. With the VR industry cake growing bigger and bigger, in 2016, Microsoft, Dell, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Alibaba, Tencent and other giants were also in the limelight, entering and accelerating the industrial layout in this area.

At the cusp of such turbulence, startup companies that have sprung up have also sharpened their slogans, and the overall development trend in the era of pan-VR/AR has gradually emerged.

“The investment boom in the entire VR industry in China began in the second half of 2015. The investment in the first half of the year reached 1.68 billion yuan. However, from the second half of 2016, the pace of investment has gradually slowed down, and investment institutions have been widely deploying VR industry. The audit of investment tends to be cautious, said Zhao Ziming, an internet analyst at the Analysys Group.

According to the findings of the Analysys VR White Paper, the investment in China's VR industry is still dominated by Angels and A rounds, with a total share of 75%. In the segmentation area, the investment in VR hardware and technology has slowed down since 2016, and investment in the content area has increased.

"Capital winter" is a term that has been mentioned in high frequency in the VR/AR field since the second half of last year. However, Wang Congqing, president of HTCVIVE China, did not agree with the "winter" judgment. "In July last year, only 28 institutions joined the VR Venture Capital Coalition. Now it is 45 companies. Before the total investment pool was set at 10 billion U.S. dollars, it is now 17 billion U.S. dollars. In just six months, there have been so many changes. Did you say this is a winter?” asked Wang Congqing. "A good company can get investment at any time, and some people who don't have the technology, content, and industry background to follow in and be successful are strange." Wang Congqing said.

Greenlight Insights also predicts that, despite the limited growth of VR industry in the short term, VR will continue to grow into a major global content market in 2021, with total global revenues reaching US$74.8 billion. Its main driving forces are the corporate market and location-based entertainment. Industry, such as VR experience halls and theme parks.

What kind of development will the VR industry achieve in 2017? In this regard, ZVR CEO Guo Wei gave his own answer: "I am particularly optimistic about the two directions, one is multi-person interaction, and the other is socialization of VR."

In addition, entertainment, education, and enterprise-level applications will also become the three main areas where VIVE focuses its efforts. Wang Congqing said that the popularity of VR devices is initially focused on the game industry. The next step should be VR cinemas. When the mainstream entertainment industry begins to embrace VR, public awareness and acceptance will reach a new height.

Zhao Yuping hopes to set up VR industry application demonstration projects such as virtual human body and medical applications, virtual prototypes and equipment manufacturing applications, virtual environments and smart city applications. In the future, the VR industry can form a number of industry application systems that have disruptive influence and can be controlled independently. The industry application development hardware and software support platform, a number of core devices, industry application interaction devices, industry application standards, etc., have an upgrading effect on the application industry.

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