Why iPhone-maker Will Beat Meta in the Mixed-Reality Battle
Rumors of an Apple Inc. mixed-reality headset have swirled for years.
Now, they’re getting very real.
Last week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple demonstrated an AR/VR (augmented and virtual reality) device to its board of directors and has a “consumer release planned for 2023.” Whenever the headset does come out, Apple is well-placed to win the mixed-reality battle.
The leading competitor in the space is Meta Platforms Inc. (aka the artist formerly known as Facebook). CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed the company and committed to spending $10 billion a year to bring to life his vision of a VR-enabled metaverse.
And there’s been serious progress: Sales of Meta’s Quest 2 hit 8.7 million units in 2021, twice as much as in the prior year, and the company owns 80% of the market.
The Quest 2 sales figure is a drop in the wearables hardware bucket compared with what Apple has been able to move, though. According to Apple analyst Neil Cybart, the iPhone maker shipped more than 100 million wearables (Apple Watch, AirPods and Beats headphones) in 2021, an increase of 4x from 2017. Also, don’t forget the 233 million iPhones it shipped last year.
No other company can move high-end consumer hardware at Apple’s scale.
In an article from last May, Cybart makes the strong case that Apple has built a “decades-long lead in wearables” by piecing together several advantages:
Custom silicon chips: Apple acquired semiconductor firm PA Semi in 2008 for $278 million. Since then, the company has rolled out custom-built chips — often higher performing than alternatives — for its devices: A Series (iPad, iPhone), M Series (Mac), S Series (Watch), W Series (AirPods).
The experience of building and shipping all this wearable hardware directly applies
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