The Vision Pro is a stellar device but the steep price tag of $3,499 already meant many consumers would never get their hands on one. Apple expected approximately 800,000 sales in the US market for the Vision Pro before release. This forecast has now been readjusted and halved to only around 400,000 expected shipments in 2024.
As Kuo notes, this massive difference in expected sales versus actual sales will probably prompt the company to make more conservative estimates for the global launch.Apple cut orders before launching Vision Pro in non-US markets, which means that demand in the US market has fallen sharply beyond expectations, making Apple take a conservative view of demand in non-US markets.
— Ming-Chi Kuo, Medium, April 2024
Kuo also conjectures that the new roadmap might mean a potential Vision Pro 2 might be delayed. Lastly, Apple’s foray into the XR industry was supposed to usher in a renewed interest in AR and VR.People expected the industry to grow and more consumer-grade headsets to make their way to the market. Kuo thinks this will be delayed: particularly the mass production and adoption of Micro-OLEDs (which drastically improve visual quality in VR).
And honestly? I think I disagree. The Vision Pro, as awesome and polished as it is, was always going to be an expensive toy. It doesn’t support PC VR games (the most common use case for VR) and its price was enough to keep most people away.
I think the VR industry is still going to grow, especially now that Meta Horizon OS has gone public. We’re already seeing new players like Asus and Lenovo working on XR headsets of their own. So, in my opinion, it only goes up from here for the XR industry. Apple Vision Pro or not.
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