China's Virtual reality scene is heating up as homegrown firms turn their attention to a potentially huge market. Analysts from i-media say this year will see a boom in the sector. Revenues from VR products are expected to increase from 1.5 billion yuan last year to more than 5.6 billion yuan in 2016, a growth of nearly 270 percent. And it won't stop there.
By 20-20, market revenue is set to exceed 55 billion yuan. While the market for VR glasses and helmets is huge, an array of challenges still lie ahead from the costs and practicalities of research and development, to financing and a lack of innovation.
However, in the future, many sectors could benefit, such as the entertainment and gaming industry, and the fields of education, architecture and design. In China, the virtual landscape has already started taking shape. Jiang Shaoyi has more.
Virtual reality, or VR, has brought scenarios once also seen in the realm of science fiction, into real life. Using this helmet, users can be transported anywhere to experience whatever they want. In China, the industry has captured the public's imagination in recent years.
"The public are already interested in it, but only in terms of its stock price at the moment. The technology needs two or three years to develop. Last year we saw hundreds of millions of yuan pouring into the industry," said Wu Jingwei, VR director of Green Pine Capital Partners.
There are more than 100 Chinese manufacturers of VR devices, but providers making content are limited.
"We lack a complete industrial scenario with too much focus on hardware, but a lack of content from the perspective of entertainment," said Xiao Mingchao, VR expert.
Eight companies dominate the VR market in China. Baofeng magic mirror, for instance, sold more than 300-thousand units in 2014.
"VR requires higher standards for technologies, such as high resolution, 4,000 pixels is the minimum requirement," said Feng Xin, CEO of Baofeng Technology.
Investors in China saw the potential value of the technology last year, when Facebook agreed to buy Oculus, a VR company. But for now, most VR headgear is still produced by multinationals, and devices are yet to be made, into what could be considered something that could be mass produced.
"VR has met with a bottleneck, it's heavy, so the popularity will not be wide spread, it calls for advanced technologies such as image definition and data processing," said Yan Jing, analyst of Huatai Securities.
But experts believe the industry is set to boom in China, thanks in part to government support. President Xi's visit to Microsoft headquarters in September, as well as his attendance at the internet conference last December, have been seen by investors as support for the industry. Last year saw an innovation-driven strategy to encourage innovation.
