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

Next Gen Connected Devices Take Off & Consumer Love Them

Currently voice control is attracting much of the smart-home spotlight but it is products will also increasingly rely on video and data analytics, sound recognition and artificial intelligence to simp...

Apple TV Shows Faith

Parks Associates' data of 2015 HDTV streaming video player unit sales spurred AppleInsider to write: "Apple saw a big boost in market share thanks to the launch of the fourth-generation Apple TV with...

How can service providers shift into the center of the smart home experience?

According to research from Parks Associates, the majority of American consumers (60%) buys or leases their residential gateway from their internet service provider (ISP). However, existing gateways ar...

Energy Bundled Services In Homes

The number of homes with BOTH broadband and solar PV doubled in the last two years as the number of broadband households that have adopted rooftop solar PV panels grew to 4 percent cross nation by the...