Is 2020 the year in which AR becomes the new norm? Cappasity Follow Feb 7 · 2 min read

When talking about augmented reality, some people might first think of Pokemon Go, which peaked at 28.5 million daily users in 2016. However the era of augmented reality (AR) has only just begun.

With the introduction of the fast cellular 5G network and the growing popularity of portable AR glasses and lenses, such as the Magic Leap and Apple Glasses, AR is becoming more convenient for the user. Thus the entire industry is expected to flourish.

Nowadays, the majority of the demand for AR comes from the creative industries: Gaming, entertainment and advertising bring in the largest portion of the revenue. However, augmented reality can prove useful for a variety of areas, for instance in the management of natural disasters. In such cases, AR glasses could provide tremendous benefits for evaluating threats, searching for evacuation routes and even in diagnosing victims quickly and efficiently. In 2020, the overall spend on AR and VR technologies is expected to increase by 78.5%, allowing to develop more promising hardware and software solutions both for businesses (B2B) and for customers (B2C). According to E-marketer, in the USA alone, the amount of users who opt out for augmented reality applications of any sort is expected to increase from 68.7 million in 2019 to over 77.7 million people in 2020, and this forecast may even be exceeded.

According to Perkins Coie, approximately 37% of the world population currently have access to AR applications. The boldest forecast suggests that in 2020, the amount of AR users will rise to a whopping 1 billion people, increasing to 2.5 billion in 2023. Needless to say, this market has huge potential for monetization.

According to Gartner, when it comes to retail, approximately 100 million people across the world currently shop using AR technologies. And according to their customer satisfaction survey, over 70% of customers are satisfied with the experience. Thus, it is high time to benefit from this rising trend and make AR a part of your business. Cappasity is happy to provide you with ready-to-use solutions, tailored to the luxury retail and e-commerce sectors, to help you get started.