“I don’t think the market is disappearing, I think it’s going through its growing pains,” said Llamas. “Nobody is guaranteed smooth sailing from day one. They’re going to go back, they’re going to refine and they iterate again. We know all these companies iterate rather well, too.”
Looking further out, IDC expects mixed reality devices to reach 12 million unit shipments in 2029 – triple the number shipped in 2025, and yet, still a small figure compared to other hardware devices. “For that market itself, that’s huge,” said Llamas. “But, in the grand scheme of things, it’s still way behind smartphones, PCs, tablets, other wearables like smart watches.
“I still think that we’re catering to early adopters and technophiles, for the most part – I struggle to see it making a significant dent in the mass market.”
