According to the analytical company SuperData, the segment of augmented reality applications in the second quarter of 2018 developed slowly, users and developers began to lose interest in it. However, analysts are confident that this drop is temporary, and the situation will change before the end of the year.
AR applications now account for 4% of the entire mobile games market, which SuperData estimates at $57 billion.
At first, the new technology aroused curiosity. But in the last quarter, 250 new applications appeared on the ARKit augmented reality platform, and in SuperData such a result is estimated as “modest”.
Increase in the number of applications on ARKit and the general audience of the AR segment over the last quarter
SuperData believes that developers are losing interest in developing such applications due to limited monetization opportunities.
The mobile audience, in turn, has become more selective. Although the number of users of AR applications increased over the last quarter from 58.5 million to 62.5 million, compared to last year, the average number of AR applications used decreased from three to two per user.
But this does not mean that everything is lost for the AR segment. According to analysts, both developers and users of augmented reality applications are just discovering the possibilities of AR. And with new applications, such as the next development by Niantic, the authors of Pokémon GO, on the Harry Potter universe, interest in augmented reality should increase again.
If this happens, then we should expect a doubling of revenue in the AR segment compared to last year, SuperData experts conclude.
Also on the topic:
- Apple has announced the second version of the ARKit AR platform
- AR apps for iOS have gained over 13 million downloads in six months
Source: SuperData