Launch of Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3, not an "Iphone moment" (yet)?

June 12 , 2023 – An Ipsos survey among 1687 Belgian adults representative of the Belgian population 18 to 70 years old was carried out on June 8th to measure awareness, current penetration and interest for VR/AR-devices. The survey took place just days after the global introduction of the Apple Vision Pro (June 5th ) and Meta Quest 3 (June 2nd).

Current ownership and usage of VR/AR-devices is low

VR/AR-devices are a niche product. 4% of the Belgian population currently owns a VR(AR)-device, with the highest occurrence being among 35- to 44 year olds and men. However, even among those already owning such headset, actual usage frequency turns out to be limited. To put current usage of VR/AR-devices in Belgium into perspective: merely 1% of the population uses a VR/AR-device on a weekly basis or more often.  Most mentioned current applications are gaming (reported by 2,7% of Belgian population), followed by watching films (1,0%). 

The launches did not go unnoticed as just shy of one in two is aware in the first few days after the launch.

Just days following the public introduction of the Meta Quest 3 by Meta on Friday the 2nd of June and the Vision Pro by Apple on Monday the 5th of June, half (49%) of the Belgian population had heard about the product launches. But the Meta Quest 3 launch was less effective to reach consumers: 47% has heard about Apple Vision Pro, and 14% has heard about Meta Quest 3. Awareness is significantly higher among the Dutch-speaking population (57% aware of one or both product launches) versus the French-speaking (40% aware of one or both product launches); and significantly lower among those aged 65 or older (40% aware of one or both product launches) versus all other age groups.

Interest in AR/VR- devices remains limited, and is more skewed to men

Asking the Belgian population about their interest in buying an Apple Pro Vision headset, 12% states to be interested, of which just 1% claiming to be ‘very interested’. Of the 88% not interested, 61% is “absolutely not interested”.  Zooming into the demographic variables within those interested, there is significantly more interest among men (15% interested) versus among women (8% interested). For the Meta Quest 3, interest levels are slightly lower: overall, 11% of the Belgian population is interested in buying, with -similar as for Pro Vision-  a higher interest among men (15% interested) versus among women (7% interested). To note: interest in the AR/VR-devices is not different amongst those aware of the introduction of the AR/VR devices versus those unaware, possibly hinting at a limited impact of the product launch introductions.

Anticipated usage of the new devices: less for gaming, more for a variety of other applications

Zooming into future usage expectations of these new devices, Belgian consumers are still mostly interested in using it as current VR/AR-device owners already do: watching movies (2,2% of Belgian consumers) and gaming (1,7% of Belgian consumers). The interest in gaming is however significantly lower versus today’s proportion of owners gaming with VR/-AR-devices (2,7%). Anticipated usage of the new devices would include a higher variety of applications beyond watching movies and gaming. Expected usage numbers are higher for cultural activities, like going to museums (2,0% of Belgian population) or concerts (1,4%), watching simulations (e.g. learning to drive a car - 1,4%), working (1,0%), meditation (0,9%) and holding meetings (0,7%).

About the Study

These are the results of an Ipsos Sprint. Sprint is an Ipsos solution where representative data can be collected within the course of 24 hours . This study was done on 07/06/2023. There were 1687 responses from adults over 18 years old. These results were subsequently weighted to be representative for the Belgian population over 18. Where results do not sum to 100 or the ‘difference’ appears to be +/-1 percentage point more/less than the actual result, this may be due to rounding, multiple responses, or the exclusion of “don't know/not sure” or not stated responses. The publication of these findings abides by local rules and regulations.