Augmented and Virtual Reality spending to reach $13.8B in 2022, ~32% growth
tolgart

Spending on AR and VR is expected to reach $13.8B this year and to $50.9B in 2026, according to IDC reports. The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will be 32.3%. 
VR to take up 70% of AR/VR spending in 2022-2026 period.
Commercial use cases- AR investments for industrial maintenance and training to take up almost one third of all AR-related spending. VR investments for training and collaboration to capture nearly 44% of the market by 2026.
Whereas, consumer use cases for VR gaming and AR gaming to stand at 25% of all AR/VR spending.
Fastest CAGR growth over five years: emergency response 82.9%, augmented reality games 57.8%, internal videography 47.8%, and collaboration 42.7%. 16 other use cases expected to grow 30% or more.
Large scale spending expected from discrete manufacturing, healthcare providers, professional services, education, and retail. Strongest spending growth expected in healthcare, telecommunications, state/local government, and utilities.
US and China to be the top two contenders for AR/VR spending, with China spending expected to chase 42.2% CAGR.
Technology-wise: Standalone and tethered head-mounted displays or HMDs to take up one-third of AR/VR spending, CAGR of 59.5% and 57.9% for host devices and tethered HMDs; strong growth of 41.3% seen for software, expected to take up a quarter of total spending.
"IDC introduced 34 additional commercial use cases to the Worldwide AR/VR Spending Guide in 2022, including minimally integrated, highly mobile, and remote use cases as well as emerging virtual collaboration. Enterprises deploy investments in AR and VR in a variety of ways including headset-centric and personal device-centric approaches as well as on premise and via cloud services supported implementations. This flexibility is allowing enterprises to realize positive returns and short payback periods on their investments." said Marcus Torchia, research VP, Data & Analytics.
Tickers to watch: Meta Platforms (META); Sony (SONY); Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL); Microsoft (MSFT); Apple (AAPL); Nvidia (NVDA); Qualcomm (QCOM)