Snapchat & Facebook enhancing the growth of augmented reality: eMarketer

According to a new report from the market research firm ‘eMarketer; augmented reality is gaining fast traction in the US. Well, the report also said that, in 2017, around 40 million people in the US is expected to get engaged in some form of augmented reality (AR) at least monthly, up 30.2 percent over last year.

In the meantime, the VR – driven mainly by 360-degree photos and videos on Facebook and YouTube – has now been slower to catch on in the US, and will not reach mass adoption in the foreseeable future, according to eMarketer’s first forecast on AR and virtual reality (VR).

Further, the market research firm defines AR users as individuals of any age who connect with augmented reality content at least once per month via any device. As per the report, 12.3 percent of the US population will connect with some form of AR content.

eMarketer also projects AR users will top 54.4 million, accounting for 16.4 percent of the US population, or nearly one in five internet users by the end of 2019,  “Users of Snapchat Lenses comprise the vast majority of our AR estimates,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst Chris Bendtsen.

Users will get a benefit to add real-time extraordinary effects and sounds to video messages sent over Snapchat with Lenses, “Snapchat growth will continue to contribute to AR users in the future, but in the next several years eMarketer also expects Facebook Stories to be a significant growth driver of AR usage since it is now widely available to Facebook’s user base,” Bendtsen said.

Also referred as Snapchat clone, Facebook Stories allows the users to adjoin effects to their photos and videos. The definition of VR used for the research includes 360-degree videos, photos and product demos via any device (for example, connected TVs, desktops/laptops, mobile devices, and headsets), and games via headsets.

The researchers also estimates, this year, just 2.9 percent of the US population will use a VR headset at least monthly but the number growing to just 5.2 percent by 2019.