Virtual reality, or VR, is predicted by many to be the next big technological breakthrough. It's no surprise then that thousands of Chinese companies are trying to get a slice of the action. But how big exactly is the market? And what's the real situation in China's VR community at the moment?
Forget the 2 dimensions of online shopping. From now on, think three.
That's what the e-commerce giant Alibaba intends to do. The company is now working on an immersive shopping experience to make seeing become sensation.
And the other important VR application is education, something that technology company HTC is very aware of.
According to a report by Goldman Sachs, by 2026, the VR market will reach over 100 billion dollars, overtaking that of TVs and tablet PCs.
Chingmu Vision, a VR company in Shanghai, is eager to be part of this vision. Chingmu's device has many special sensors that can capture movement more precisely. And alongside infrared detectors, the accuracy can be up to 0.5 milimeters, an industrial level. Yet, this cannot guarantee success.
"Generally speaking, we're still lagging behind in many areas. This is competition on a much higher level, on the creative content, the computing chips, the interactive equipment, the rendering algorithms and many other things," said Zhang Haiwei, CTO of Chingmu Vision Technology, Shanghai.
Luckily, Zhang said Chinese developers still enjoy the benefits of a large population and a rapidly growing mobile internet sector. But some have other concerns.
"To some extent, the VR market now in China is a little bit overheated. The Internet logic like the numbers of downloads and active users doesn't apply to VR, so the vision becomes the most important factor in evaluation," said Chen Qiufan, vice president of Noitom Technology, Beijing.
Chen says China's VR market is at a very primary stage, but everybody is still willing to bet on its future.
