Augmented reality technology integrates digital data or information with other physical environment in real-time. This digital information is presented in the form of graphics, haptic feedback, sounds as it exists in the natural world. Moreover, the digital information is also presented in super-imposed animation or image with the help of cameras on the AR headset or mobile device. Due to rising number of smartphones, tablets and other smart devices, the demand for mobile AR device is rising among the consumers across the world. The demand for mobile based AR games is also increasing in public, familiar example of mobile based AR games is Pokémon Go, which was location-based AR mobile game that has in-app purchases, accounting and increase consumer mobile AR spending. Apart from this, the augmented reality also has wide application in construction and architecture sector, the advanced AR technology such as object recognition and computer vision manipulates the digital information as per the requirement of the clients. The AR technology helps in providing 3D model of the building’s or flat’s design on an existing space with the help of mobile device. AR technology or devices are widely used in construction sites for showing clients with proposed designs before its construction. The AR technology is also used in construction and architecture sector for space planning and design visualization of the construction site, therefore, it has high demand in the construction and architecture sector.
Moreover, AR technology is also used in education sector helping the educators and teachers to explain the content to students with the help of the visual representation of study material. The AR technology benefits the students to understand the concept in detail and it helps even outside the classroom. Furthermore, the AR technology is beneficial for students for their distance and online learning courses. Most of the universities across the developed countries are using augmented reality platform for marketing and advertising in education field that helps in increasing the enrollment and assisting new students in finding route to the campus. Apart from this, the augmented reality is used to improve experiences of people inside museums, here AR content is added to various objects in the museums such as paintings, documents, statues, architectural monuments and historic artifacts, which increase engagement and enhance the visitor’s interest. Furthermore, the augmented reality is also used in indoor and outdoor navigation. Indoor navigation helps in construction of an optimum route to user’s desired location by indicating it in mobile device. On the other hand, AR technology in outdoor navigation is used in tourism industry which help tourists in finding suitable accommodations and also assist them in selecting locations and sites to visit on AR-based virtual tours. Therefore, the rising adoption of augmented reality technology in tourism and other industries is projected to drive the growth of market in the forecast period.
In addition, the augmented reality technology is implemented using various displays such as head-up display (HUD), head-mounted display (HMD) and handheld devices Among these, head-mounted displays segment dominates the market because HUD has demand across various industries among young as well as adults. Further, these AR displays are used in different end-use industries such as gaming and entertainment, industrial products, automotive, education, aerospace and defense, electronics and high tech, and healthcare, among others.
Industrial segment dominates the market as AR is widely used in manufacturing and other industrial processes for assisting the production processes and finding and resolving faults and problems in these processes. Moreover, in the regional sector, North America dominates the market due to rising adoption of AR technology and high technological spending in the region. Some of the major companies in the global augmented reality market are Google LLC, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation, PTC Inc., RE'FLEKT GmbH, Niantic, Inc., Zappar Ltd., Blippar Ltd., Epson America, Inc. and Wikitude GmbH.
Trends and Future Outlook:
- Google’s ARCore is using augmented reality technology for innovating the introduction of publicly-made Street View photos
- Rising investment of e-commerce companies for incorporating AR technology in online shopping
- Growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in AR technology
