Jan 03, 2026
3 min read
Headset hype meets harsh reality as Apple and Meta VR shipments end in 2025
How about some smart glasses instead?
Apple's expensive Vision Pro VR headset will cost around 2025.
The company halted production with one of its suppliers, didn't put out any of the $3,500 headsets for the first three quarters of the year, then relaunched the headset with one of its high-end M5 chips in time for the fourth quarter, but only managed to get 45,000 out the door by 2025, according to IDC.
This means that less than 345,000 Vision Pros will be shipped in 2024.
In comparison, Meta, delivered 1.7 million units of Meta Quest in the first quarter of 2025, according to IDC.It helps that they cost a tenth of the price, starting at $349.
But even Meta's shipments are down 16 percent year over year, and the consumer market for bulk headgear has cooled, IDC Vice President Francisco Jeronimo told The Register.
"All these ideas that AR and VR will replace smartphones are not going to happen. They're not going to happen," Jeronimo said by phone Friday.
Last year looked more promising, IDC said: Apple shipped 390,000 Vision Pro headsets for about $1.4 billion in device revenue, while Meta shipped 5.6 million Quest and Quest Pros for about $2.9 billion during the same period.
Among consumers, the biggest demand for big head suits is in the gaming segment, Jeronimo said.Meta has solidified here with the likes of Beat Saber, Gorilla Tag and Job Simulator.
But still, IDC expects the overall market for mixed and virtual reality headsets to decline by 42.8% when the final numbers are made in 2025.
Crashes with VR headsets also saw Apple and Meta abandon their ads in 2025, according to Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm.Apple's Vision Pro ads account for less than 1 percent of its U.S. ad spending, the company found.
Overall, Apple's Vision Pro-related digital ad spending in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, UK, Italy and Japan fell by more than 95% year-over-year in each market, Sensor Tower found, from early 2025.Meta's spending on Quest-related ads in the same market fell more than 55% year over year, its researchers said.
What seems to be hot, however, is the smart glass market, Geronimo told The Register.
IDC expects the market to grow 211.2 percent by 2025. Meta shipped 20,000 units of the new Ray-Ban Meta in the third quarter of 2025.
"When it comes to glasses, there's a sense -- and our assessments point to -- that this is probably the next 'big thing' in terms of hands-free content interaction," Geronimo said.
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IDC predicts that smart glasses are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.3% from 2025 to 2029.
We still don't know if glasses will replace mobile phones or not, but what we see is more interest from various players to explore this type of product because it offers an interesting experience to end users without having to spend $3,500 for a device.
While users outside of gaming may not bite on bulky headphones, there may still be commercial and educational applications for Apple's Vision Pro.
Earlier this year, Apple executives cited corporate use cases for Vision Pro in healthcare, vehicle design and manufacturing, and aviation workforce training.UC San Diego doctors completed 60 real-time surgery clinical trials using Vision Pro to keep patient information in their field of view during surgery.Purdue University is using the headset to train manufacturing students in creating digital replicas of semiconductors and pharmaceutical objects.
IDC predicts the VR headset market will overtake Apple in 2026, and Cupertino predicts it will ship 290,000 units, generating $636 million in revenue.
Jeronimo said that with plans to introduce more affordable headsets in the second half of 2026, he doesn't think Apple is giving up on the device, but may be looking at a smaller market aimed at business and education.
"When it comes to commercial, we see an opportunity here. For an organization to pay that much money for a device that can really improve processes and make the organization more efficient, it's not that expensive," Jeronimo told The Register.
