Wen Xi, reporter of China Foundation News
Hailed by Apple CEO Cook as "the MR headset that will replace the iPhone in the next 10 years", is it in line with market expectations?
In the early morning of June 6, Beijing time, Apple launched Apple's first MR mixed reality headset Vision Pro at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC23), which attracted global attention. It is reported that Vision Pro is expected to be available in early 2024.
In the A-share market, the stock price performance of many Apple suppliers was shocking. In recent early trading, Changying Precision plunged 16%, including Luxshare Precision and Goertek, whose shares fell by more than 7% and 6% respectively, while MR equipment manufacturer Jept fell by more than 17%.
Apple's stock price immediately plunged
Apple's 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC23) was held in San Francisco, USA, and the slogan of this WWDC is "Code new worlds". Basically consistent with previous revelations, Apple finalized its first mixed reality (MR) headset device, Vision Pro.
This product is Apple's most important new product in the past 10 years. Apple spent seven years developing the Vision Pro and delayed its release several times. Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "This marks the beginning of a journey. According to Apple, Vision Pro is expected to be available in early 2024.
Like Apple's other devices, Vision Pro will have its own operating system, called vision OS.
Apple said that this MR is Apple's first spatial computing device, this MR seamlessly integrates digital content into the real world. According to Apple, users can control the Vision Pro with their hands, eyes and voice, and this device will allow users to experience movies, TV shows and games in a more immersive way.
In addition, Vision Pro does not isolate the user from the outside world, when someone is nearby, Vision Pro will display the image of the user's eyes on the outside of the device, and nearby people will appear in the user's field of vision.
However, in the most concerned price link, Apple's MR product significantly exceeded market expectations. Its price is $3499, which is significantly higher than similar products from competitors.
Before Apple launched the Vision Pro, Meta was the first to release the consumer MR headset Meta Quest 3, priced at $499.99 at 128GB. Even the high-end Quest Pro has a debut price of "only" $1499.99.
In addition, OPPO also released its first MR product, OPPO MR Glass Developer Edition, at the Augmented Reality World Expo; At present, the product is mainly provided for developers and is not publicly available.
Before WWDC, Apple's stock price hit a record high of $184.951 per share, up more than 2% at one point. However, when the price of Vision Pro was announced, the stock quickly dipped and fell more than 1% at one point in late trading, eventually closing down 0.76%.
Supplier stock prices plummeted
Before the release of Vision Pro, many institutions believed that Apple's new products were expected to greatly promote the development of XR and drive investment opportunities in the industry chain. Institutions generally expect that the industry may be expected to enter a new upcycle.
For now, however, expectations have clearly been disappointed. In the eyes of the market, the Vision Pro is too expensive, and the mass production time is lower than the market expects.
In the A-share market, the stock prices of many Apple suppliers plummeted. As of press time, Changying Precision fell more than 16% in early trading, while Luxshare Precision also fell more than 7%, and Goertek shares also fell more than 6%. As a MR equipment supplier, Zhicube once fell by more than 13%, and Jept fell by more than 17%.
In fact, Apple officially announced the first MR headset, an expectation that has triggered the continued attention of the entire market a month and a half in advance.
Well-known Apple analyst Kuo Mingxi recently said that shipments in 2023 may be lower than market expectations. He also said that investors are paying more attention to when Apple will launch a ChatGPT-like service than AR/MR headsets. In addition, Guo Mingxi believes that in the long run, the key to the success of this headset is whether it can be highly integrated with AI. He cited NVIDIA's second-quarter performance expectations that significantly exceeded market expectations as an example of investors' focus on AI.
Western Securities also directly threw out the question in a research report, "The problem in the XR field is still clear, what is the biggest selling point of these headsets released on the market at present?" ”
The agency said in the research report that although games are the wishful thinking of most people, especially the vivid pictures described in the market such as science fiction movies and anime, the reality is that there is still no killer application necessary for VR, which is also the biggest uncertainty hindering the development of VR. The agency believes that killer apps are key.
Huachuang Securities also believes that although XR hardware continues to iterate, there is still a lack of benchmark products, and the lack of content has become the core factor limiting XR shipments. Subsequently, although XR hardware continues to innovate, Meta/Pico/Skyworth Digital and other players have released new products, but limited by the lack of innovation on the software side and limited customer expansion, the XR hardware market demand has slowed down since 21.
Judging from recent industry shipments, XR is still difficult to support the banner of consumer electronics. According to the latest report released by IDC, the growth rate of global AR (augmented reality) and VR headset shipments fell sharply in the first quarter of 2023 as macroeconomic conditions deteriorated. According to the report, AR/VR headset shipments in the first quarter of 2023 decreased by 54.4% year-on-year, of which VR headsets accounted for 96.2%.
Huachuang Securities said that based on the development history of the smartphone industry, excellent products and content are the core driving factors of the industry. The agency took the iPhone 4 as an example, with the release of the model and games such as Fruit Ninja and Temple Run marked the entry of smartphones into an efficiency revolution, and smartphones ushered in a golden period of rapid development.
In fact, with the continuous iteration of hardware, the current XR industry hardware has basically met the needs of users, but lacks revolutionary products polished to the extreme like the iPhone 4 to establish the inner benchmark of consumers. In terms of content, XR's early excellent content was concentrated in the game field, and the application scenarios were limited, resulting in limited development of the industry.
However, since 2015, Apple has acquired several startups in the past 7 years to provide content services for its MR. It is reported that Apple may focus on four major scenarios such as education and health to create an Apple content ecology. Disney CEO Robert Iger attended Apple's WWDC 23, and he said in a pre-recorded video that Disney will provide a streaming service to the Vision Pro once it ships.
Editor: Joey
Review: Xu Wen