Mixed reality apps are on the up

• Researchers expect 10 billion installs  by 2014
• Most of this activity will be driven by social media and games
• Consumer mixed reality app installs to grow by 170% over the next 5 years

A study by Juniper Research has found that the number of consumer mixed reality app installs will reach 10 billion by 2024; rising from 3 billion in 2019.  Mixed reality is about overlaying interactive digital images and videos onto the real world images through a smartphone, tablet or smart glasses.

There are very serious uses for the technique, including safety training, assisting engineers as they change out or repair components in the field and many more, limited only by the imagination. But of course the main attraction, as with any round of new technology, is games. 

Juniper’s research, Consumer Mixed Reality: Emerging Opportunities, Vendor Strategies & Market Forecasts 2019-2024, has identified social media and games as the key app categories that will drive adoption. It forecasts that these categories will account for over half of the global mixed reality market value by 2024.

 The new data shows that 75% of the consumer mixed reality market, by value, will be attributable to in‑app purchases by 2024. However, the research warns that these apps will suffer from high app abandonment rates similar to the wider app market. In response, app developers are urged to continually update offerings over the lifecycle of the app to ensure that the user proposition is maintained.

“Despite temptations to continually grow the app user base, app developers must have a primary focus on retaining existing users,”says research author Sam Barker. “Successful mixed reality app developers, Niantic and Snap, have continued to leverage their significant user bases by ensuring that app content is consistently refreshed, therefore benefiting from continued user spend”.

 The research predicts that advertising spend over consumer mixed reality apps will reach $11 billion by 2024; rising from $2 billion in 2019. In order for advertising over mixed reality content to become appealing to high spending advertisers, the research recommends that advertising processes must mirror advertising processes in the wider market.

It urges the ecosystem to adopt advertising attribution platforms and fraud prevention tools, in order to attract high advertising spend. However, the research also warns that over-exposing users to advertising content will lead swiftly to high disengagement levels.

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