Starting Friday, Apple’s mixed reality headset, the Vision Pro, will be accessible in several countries beyond the United States. Australian customers are already able to purchase the headset as of Friday morning. The Vision Pro will also be available in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom as soon as stores open. This international rollout follows the headset’s debut in Asian markets, including China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, on June 28.
At Apple’s prominent Regent Street store in London, customers have booked appointments to try out the Vision Pro. Unlike other Apple products like iPhones, which customers typically pre-order online without hands-on testing, the Vision Pro’s higher price point of $3,499 necessitates in-store demonstrations to showcase its value.
Bryan Ma, Vice President at International Data Corporation, noted the significant anticipation for the Vision Pro, highlighting its position as a new product category that has yet to become mainstream. He also emphasized Apple’s advanced implementation compared to competitors.
However, Ma pointed out the challenge for Apple to maintain initial excitement and convert it into sustained sales, especially given the high price and the still-developing ecosystem of applications and use cases.
According to a June 18 IDC report, Meta held the leading position in the mixed/virtual reality headset market in the first quarter, with Apple’s recent entry propelling it to second place. ByteDance, Xreal, and HTC also ranked in the top five. The report noted that both Meta’s Quest 3 and the Vision Pro have been instrumental in educating users and inspiring developers to create mixed reality content despite the high costs involved.
Apple has reportedly adjusted its Vision Pro sales expectations to around 400,000 to 450,000 units in 2024, down from an initial forecast of 700,000 to 800,000 units, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities. Kuo attributed the revised forecast to decreasing demand.
Ma projected that Apple will ship approximately 400,000 units this year, with nearly half of these sales occurring outside the U.S. He suggested that the market could grow more rapidly if hardware prices decrease and the utility of applications improves.
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