The VR industry fared well this Christmas. Hardware sales exceeded expectations and VR website traffic hit all-time highs. The following infographic shows how VR porn contributed to this success.

Christmas Spike

Over the holidays, VR traffic spiked to record levels. The biggest VR site, VRPorn.com, saw traffic increase by 100% in the month of December.

Headset sales were the primary cause of the traffic surge. Many VR devices went on sale for Christmas and consumers took advantage of the discounts. Even Amazon was unable to keep up with demand and sold out of Oculus Rift headsets. The Black Friday sales numbers reveal the massive demand for VR and suggest that, as hardware prices come down, adoption will accelerate.

Demand for VR Content

Improved VR content selection also played a role in growth. Based on Google search records, VR porn is the most sought after category, followed by VR Games, and VR apps. There were 1.5 million searches for VR porn last month, more than any other VR related term. Adult content is drawing people to virtual reality. This is a pattern that’s very common with new media formats (the same thing with happened with VHS and the internet).

A breakdown of VR website traffic tells a similar story. Adult sites are still the most frequented VR destinations. They represent 60% of the top fifty most popular VR sites. Here again, we see how porn gives early adopters a taste of what’s possible while more mainstream content producers catch up.

Looking Forward to 2019

Lower prices combined with better content led to record-breaking VR traffic last year. With tons of exciting new products hitting the market soon, 2019 is gearing up to be a great year for virtual reality.