The Financial Associated Press reported on October 29 that the 2022 World VR Industry Conference Preparatory Work Scheduling Promotion Conference announced that it is expected that by the end of October, the preparatory work for the conference will be basically ready, and it will be fully ready on November 5. The conference is accelerating the production of innovative scenes such as Metaverse venues, immersive space special effects performances, and virtual digital humans to ensure a wonderful appearance during the conference.
It is reported that the 2022 World VR Industry Conference is hosted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the People’s Government of Jiangxi Province and will be held in Nanchang from November 12 to 13. Since 2018, the World VR Industry Conference has been held in Jiangxi for four consecutive sessions.
VR/AR is an important intelligent terminal that supports the metaverse from concept to reality. According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s prediction at the 2018 developer conference, 10 million users will be a “singularity” in sales of VR hardware . That is, when the number of users grows to a certain scale effect, VR hardware and application and content developers can make continuous and stable profits, thus promoting the leap-forward development of the VR ecosystem. In November 2021, the cumulative sales of Meta’s flagship product Oculus Quest 2 has exceeded 10 million units.
With the rise of the concept of “metaverse”, the VR/AR industry has steadily increased its issuance. According to Weishen statistics, in the first half of 2022, the global VR headset shipments will be about 6.84 million units, and the Chinese headset shipments will be about 605,800 units, accounting for about 8.86% of the global shipments. It is estimated that the annual global VR shipments will reach 13 million units this year.
In the first half of 2022, Sony, Panasonic, Xiaopai Technology and other manufacturers have successively launched new VR headsets. In the second half of the year, Pico, Skyworth and Oculus are also planning to launch. Among them, Pico Neo4 will hold a new product launch conference on September 27 in China; Skyworth Pancake1 will be launched in August, and Pancake 1 Pro will be launched at the end of the year.
Currently, VR is mainly used in games. As of June 30, 2022, there are 6,574 VR content on the Steam platform, of which 5,468 are exclusive VR content, which is still the current mainstream VR content platform. 1068 content, the highest increment.
In addition to games, the application scenarios of VR continue to expand to social medical education, industrial production and other aspects.
Socially, Horizon Worlds launched by Meta is a VR chat software where users can create a self-image for socializing. Compared with a single form of video conferencing, VR social networking can make people’s images more three-dimensional, and the information brought by their physical expressions is more dense, which increases user participation and makes the interaction more directional.
Medically, VR experiences could help improve Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. According to the Research And Markets report, the AR and VR market size in the healthcare sector is currently close to $2.7 billion and is expected to reach $9.79 billion in the next five years, with a 3.5-fold growth expected in 2027.
In terms of education, VR/AR is an important means to build smart education scenarios. It is more interactive in education, and the display effect is more vivid. The safety of high-risk teaching experiments is increased through virtual scenarios. In terms of education, six departments including the Ministry of Science and Technology issued a notice on “Guiding Opinions on Accelerating Scenario Innovation and Promoting High-Quality Economic Development with High-level Application of Artificial Intelligence”: “In the field of education, we actively explore online classrooms, virtual classrooms, and virtual simulation training. , virtual teaching and research room, new teaching materials, teaching resource construction, smart campus and other scenarios.” According to the gyro research institute, the VR/AR education and training market scale will reach 6.6 billion yuan in 2022.
Guosen Securities Research Report pointed out that 1) In the short term, the VR/AR industry will usher in a period of intensive release of new products, and continue to pay attention to the catalytic opportunities driven by consumer electronics. The superimposed metaverse theme is fully adjusted, VRAR is the key hardware entry, and the metaverse sector is expected to usher in an opportunity to rebound.
2) In the medium and long term, VR/AR ushered in the outbreak of the consumer market. Comparing the development paths and progress of the VR ecology at home and abroad, the content ecology is the most critical factor for the future success of the VR industry. The leaders of media content have all reached the bottom of historical valuations and the policy side is good, and the medium and long-term allocation value is relatively cost-effective. It is recommended to pay attention to Mango Supermedia, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment, etc.
3) From the perspective of VR content ecological investment opportunities, a) focus on investment opportunities with professional production capabilities of VR content. In terms of games, strong PC console game production companies have strong VR transformation capabilities. Relevant A-share game companies are building professional VR game production teams. In addition, the game version number is restarted, and the prosperity and valuation are expected to improve. A-share game companies are expected to improve. It is recommended to pay attention to Kaiying Network, Baotong Technology, Perfect World, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment, etc. Hong Kong stocks suggest to pay attention to China Mobile Games, Zulong Entertainment, etc. In terms of video, domestic top video platforms, film and television content companies, professional VR manufacturers and overseas Head Film and Entertainment Group is an important source of VR film and television copyright. A shares suggest to pay attention to Mango Supermedia, Huace Film and Television, Aofei Entertainment, Enlight Media, Chinese Online, Jebsen, etc. Hong Kong shares suggest to pay attention to Bilibili; b) Focus on investment opportunities in content distribution platforms. It is recommended to pay attention to Perfect World, which is the Chinese agent of Steam, a global console game distribution platform; c) Pay attention to B-side application scenarios. VR/AR technology has in-depth applications in digital display, CG vision, live broadcast, naked eye 3D and other fields. It is recommended to pay attention to Fengyuzhu, Zhaoxun Media, Saturday, Hengxin Oriental, etc.
4) Investment opportunities on the content side of the domestic VR hardware brand industry chain. a) Pico: Mango TV and Bilibili provide long video content; game content stakeholders pay attention to Baotong Technology, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment, Perfect World, etc.; Zhidu Shares “Meta Other Side”, Mango Supermedia “Mango Fantasy City” Yuan Cosmic Community launched PicoStore; b) Da Peng VR: Aofei Entertainment and Kaiying Network participated in the shares; c) Qiyu VR: Qiyu VR, a VR company under iQiyi.