Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

How Many Consumers Actually Have VR Headsets?

Parks Associates released new consumer research this week showing that 2 percent of U.S. broadband households, or 2.3 million households, own a virtual reality headset. The survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households reportedly reveals that 5 percent of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a VR headset in 2016, an increase from only 1 percent who made a purchase the year prior.

“The big change in VR for 2016 has been the availability or pending availability of VR headsets from companies such as Facebook (Oculus Rift), Google (Google Cardboard) and HTC (Vive). Sony PlayStation VR is expected to be released in October. We expect gamers to be the initial market for VR,” Barbara Kraus, Parks Associates director of research, says. “VR is an immersive experience, and more is better for gamers – more immersion, better sound, better graphics, and more players. The mass market is more likely to adopt mobile VR, which will be less expensive and uses a tool – the smartphone – that the majority of U.S. consumers own.”

From the article "How Many Consumers Actually Have VR Headsets?" by Laura Hamilton.

Previously In The News

Smart TVs: Today’s center of video aggregation and opportunity —Industry Voices: Erickson

Smart TVs are viewed as must-have devices by an increasing number of US homes, and they are the only streaming video product category to have risen in adoption continuously throughout the pandemic. Ho...

Coming in 2022: A big leap in smart home technology

Most consumers haven't caught IoT fever yet. "New research from Parks Associates indicates that just 36% of US broadband households have one smart home device, a percentage that decreases if all house...

OTT Video Service Subscriptions Increase in Q1 According to Parks Associates

OTT video service subscriptions are increasing a year after the start of the global pandemic. Parks Associates’ latest research of 10,000 US broadband households finds 82 percent of U.S. broadband hou...

Is Sharing Your Netflix Password Illegal?

In other words, it could be applied to the consensual sharing of a Facebook password. In the court’s ruling, the “owner” is not the user or the account-holder; it is the platform owner. And according...