Following the release of PICO 4 by Byte’s subsidiary PICO
and accelerating its entry into the international market, Meta recently held
its first Connect conference after the company changed its name and launched
its first high-end VR headset Meta Quest Pro, which is also the first time Meta
has launched a VR headset. The second product line focuses on office scenes.
But it is worth noting that the market price of Meta Quest
Pro is 1499 US dollars, which is about 10741 yuan, which is several times
higher than the Meta Quest 2's price of 399.99 US dollars.
Although according to previous reports of the
"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily", since last year, the
VR virtual reality industry has entered the fast lane of development. In 2021,
the global shipment of VR headsets will reach 10.95 million units, breaking the
industry inflection point of annual shipments of 10 million units. In the first
quarter of this year, VR headsets continued to sell well, with global shipments
increasing by 241.6% year-on-year.
In China, the popularity of the VR industry is gradually
increasing. Data shows that in the first half of 2022, the retail sales of
China's VR market exceeded 800 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 81%,
and the average sales price of VR headsets rose from less than 1,000 yuan in
the early stage to about 1,740 yuan.
However, the price of Meta Quest Pro is as high as tens of
thousands of yuan. Whether it is in the Chinese market or in the foreign
market, how many consumers will be willing to pay?
Can Meta Quest Pro be played?
From the hardware level, compared to the PICO 4 Pro priced
at 3799 yuan, the Meta Quest Pro is indeed much stronger in some aspects.
First of all, in terms of handle tracking performance, the
Hyper Sense handle used in the PICO 4 Pro has a built-in IMU sensor and 20
infrared sensors to support the new Hyper Sense vibration. Compared with the
previous PICO Neo 3, although the performance has been improved, if compared
with the Meta Quest Pro, there is still room for optimization.
The Meta Quest Pro removes the tracking ring, which
reduces the chance of collision while making the handle lighter. At the same
time, the Meta Quest Pro's controller uses a new tactile sensor and press
sensor to increase the tracking function from the inside out.
Secondly, in terms of color perspective function, both
PICO 4 Pro and Meta Quest Pro are equipped with the Pass through function,
which allows users to observe the real situation around them at any time, and
also allows VR headsets to increase the possibility of AR and even MR
experience. But it should be pointed out that the resolution of the front
sensor of the Quest Pro is 1280×1024, but the PICO 4 Pro has not announced the
data in this regard.
Finally, the Meta Quest Pro is the first product to use
the Snapdragon XR2+Gen1. Equipped with the new Gen1 platform, it can support
more concurrent multimedia processing and perception technologies to enable
full sensory interaction without sacrificing the terminal shape design. For
example, expressions and images created in the Metaverse are more realistic.
But at present, Meta Quest Pro still has many defects in
hardware. In terms of battery life, professionals have found that the battery
life of the Meta Quest Pro is about 2 hours. As a VR device for positioning office
scenes, it is obvious that this battery life is obviously insufficient.
In terms of display and optical components, although at
the Connect conference, Meta said that the Quest Pro's center sharpness,
peripheral area, and contrast were increased by 25%, 50%, and 75%,
respectively, and the color gamut was increased by 30%. However, its basic
resolution has not reached 2K per eye, and traditional LCD panels are still
used. The PICO 4 Pro is equipped with a single-eye 2K-level Mini LED panel.
Therefore, it may not perform as well as the PICO 4 Pro in this regard.
From the perspective of software ecology, on the basis of
the original Quest2, Quest Pro has added a number of IP games, such as
"Iron Man VR" and so on. And Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) is also coming
to the Quest Store soon.
In terms of office scenarios, Quest Pro Workrooms has
added a personal office mode, opened up Microsoft Teams, Zoom, etc., and is
compatible with more overseas video conferencing platforms. At the same time,
for the AR and VR hybrid office mode, the launch of the Magic Room project can
realize virtual collaboration of multiple people.
At the same time, Meta continues to promote cooperation with
office companies to improve the content ecosystem of Quest Pro. For example,
Microsoft brings Mesh for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Apps, Microsoft Intune
and Azure Active Directory to the Quest line of headsets.
Auto desk will launch a new VR application for Quest Pro
next year, and Adobe will also launch a set of VR design tools next year, which
can be used for 3D creation through the Quest Pro handle. The PDF tool Adobe
Acrobat will also support the Quest platform.
In addition, the Meta Quest for Business for the enterprise
market will be added to the Quest Pro model next year.
Superior hardware capabilities, rich content ecology, and
cost-effective products are the keys to Meta's rapid growth and market share
expansion.
According to the market share of XR in the fourth quarter
of 2021 released by Counterpoint Research, the market shares of Meta, Dapeng
VR, and PICO are 80%, 8%, and 5%, respectively. In the past two years, the
market share of Oculus, a subsidiary of Meta VR, has continued to expand from
34% in the first quarter of 2020 to 80% in the fourth quarter of 2021, far
ahead of other global peers.
However, this style of play is not applicable to the Quest
Pro, which is taking the high route and positioning the office scene, which
also makes the subsequent sales of the Quest Pro full of unknowns.
How much sales can the price of 10,000 yuan bring?
From the perspective of the Chinese market, according to
the data of Magic Mirror Market Intelligence, at the beginning of 2019,
domestic low-end VR devices with less than 500 components (mainly 3D glasses)
contributed more than 30% of the monthly sales, with more than 6,000 yuan/piece
of high-end VR devices (mainly PCVR) contributed over 20% of monthly sales.
However, from 2019 to June 2022, the sales share of
products in the price segment below 500 yuan/piece and above 6,000 yuan/piece
has gradually shrunk, and mid-range price products dominated by VR all-in-one
machines have gradually become the absolute main force in the market.
Among them, the average sales prices of Rokid and
GOOVIS/Core Vision on Taoxian platforms are 4,052 yuan and 5,180 yuan
respectively, but from July 2021 to June 2022, their annual sales are only
2,900 and 2,100 units. Compared with the OCULUS series products with an average
price of 1622 yuan, the sales gap is obvious, even less than a fraction of the
other party.
Obviously, the price of Meta Quest Pro is as high as tens
of thousands of yuan, which completely exceeds the price that domestic VR
enthusiasts can accept, and its sales volume will not be too optimistic.
In addition, corporate employees also have to consider
many practical issues when purchasing Meta Quest Pro for office work.
Designer Tingting told us that even if her conditions
allow it, she would not spend 10,000 yuan to buy Meta Quest Pro. First of all,
is it really more efficient to create art with a handle than it is now to
create with a mouse? Even if efficiency is not considered, can the creation of
Meta Quest Pro fully meet the customer's requirements? I'm afraid there will be
another question mark here?
Secondly, since the domestic VR market is still in the
popular stage, internal employees and external customers rarely use VR to
communicate with specific work. Then, in this case, if you use VR to work by
yourself, it will lead to very unsmooth when working with colleagues and
external customers, which will greatly affect the normal development of work.
Finally, similar to some scenarios proposed by Meta Quest
Pro, the existing domestic software can already be satisfied. For example, in
the field of video conferencing, Tencent Conference, DingTalk, etc. It's just
that these software can't create an avatar in a conference like Meta Quest Pro,
but paying tens of thousands of yuan for an avatar is obviously not
cost-effective.
If the employees of the enterprise consider Meta Quest Pro
more from the practical point of view, then for the executives of the
enterprise, it is an economical account that has to be calculated in the
large-scale promotion of the Meta Quest Pro office within the company.
A person in charge of a company in Beijing told us that in
the past few years, under the combined impact of multiple unfavorable factors
such as the epidemic, the weakening of the domestic consumer market, and the
rise of international bulk commodity raw materials, the days of domestic
private enterprises have been difficult. The biggest problem facing enterprises
at this stage is how to continuously reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Taking our company as an example, the total number of
employees in the company is 150. If Meta Quest Pro is purchased in batches, the
cost of equipment acquisition for enterprises will be as high as millions. But
the question is how much actual economic benefits it can help enterprises
convert into millions of dollars of investment?
In addition, Meta has been repeatedly exposed to privacy
and security issues before, which has made enterprises full of concerns about
Meta Quest Pro. For example, just this past September, South Korea’s personal
information protection agency announced a fine of 30.8 billion won, or about
$22 million, on Meta for tracking users’ online activities without their
consent and using their data to serve ads to them.
In the same way, if the company uses Meta Quest Pro for
video conferences, if the relatively private meetings involving major business
policy adjustments, customer quotations, etc. are leaked, this will definitely
bring a huge amount of inconvenience to the development of the company. small
loss. Therefore, many companies also take a wait-and-see attitude towards Meta
Quest Pro.
Obviously, these concerns of corporate employees and
corporate executives have also made the Meta Quest Pro, which may already have
low sales, worse. Moreover, the problems that Meta Quest Pro faces in other
markets may be more complicated than those in my country. Taking the US market
as an example, with the current rising inflation in the US, the local
residents' demand for consumer electronics has gradually weakened.
As early as July this year, Best Buy, the largest consumer
electronics retailer in the United States, lowered its second-quarter and
full-year performance forecasts. According to the company's downward financial
report guidance, it is expected that same-store sales will decline by about 13%
in the second quarter, which is lower than the 8% forecast in May. Same-store
sales were also revised down for the current fiscal year and are now expected
to decline by 11%, a further expansion from the 3%-6% decline forecast in May.
In fact, the concerns of domestic and foreign investors
about the future sales of Meta Quest Pro are also directly reflected in the
secondary market. On the day of the Meta launch, it was down about 4.5% in
midday trading. At the close of the day, it closed down 3.92%.
For Meta, Quest Pro is used as the terminal product, and
the office scene is used as the traffic entrance, so as to seize the market
share of Metaverse in the B-end in advance. Although this path seems clear, if
Quest Pro does not have excessive sales, it also means that the cost invested
in Meta’s early Quest Pro equipment is difficult to convert, which undoubtedly
increases the cash flow risk of the company. But this is just the tip of the
iceberg of the problems that Meta faces in the layout of the B-end metaverse
market.
Metaverse B-end market, the road is long and difficult
In fact, the "virtual" in the metaverse and the
"real" in real life may conflict in some scenarios. Especially in the
context of the current global economy full of uncertainty, compared with the
virtual scene in the metaverse, various SaaS companies have launched various
tools through their business insights to improve their operational
capabilities, which seems more Meet the current requirements of the enterprise.
At the same time, driven by various factors such as the
digitalization process, the epidemic, intergenerational changes in population,
and capital injection, the penetration rate of the domestic and foreign SaaS
industry on the enterprise side will be higher in the future. And for
enterprises, the cost of trial and error using SaaS products is obviously much
lower than the cost of trial and error using products in the Metaverse.
So, in this context, what scenarios does Meta use to hit
the pain points of B-end customers? And then let B-end customers have trust in
Meta's products, so as to increase the sales of products? For Meta, it is
estimated that it will take a long time to work hard.
It is worth noting that different types of TOP-level
enterprise-level SaaS in my country are in a state of low profit or loss. Due
to the characteristics of its business model, loss in the early stage of
development is a common phenomenon in the industry. And this will inevitably
make Meta, which is already in serious losses, worse.
Among them, Meta's Reality Labs division is responsible for
developing various products for the Metaverse, and data shows that the
division's revenue is only $695 million. Reality Labs remains a cash-burning
arm of Meta's gamble on future opportunities. According to Meta’s financial
report, Reality Labs lost $2.96 billion in the first quarter of 2022, an
increase from a loss of $1.83 billion in the same period last year.
Although according to Zuckerberg, the Metaverse is a
long-term investment and will not be profitable in the short term. But the
question is, if Meta's performance consistently falls short of expectations,
and the Metaverse business you bet on suffers huge losses, how much patience
does the capital market have for Meta?
Conclusion:
At present, Meta's revenue mainly comes from online
advertising on social tools, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Whats App. Taking
the first quarter of this year as an example, Meta's advertising revenue
advertising accounted for 97.5% of the company's total revenue. Obviously,
Meta's continued layout of the metaverse is to diversify its revenue.
However, when the C-side Metaverse has not yet found a
clear profit model and the business still needs to be gradually improved, Meta
is continuing to deploy the B-side market. We have reason to believe that VR
office may become mainstream in the future, but according to Meta's current
performance, will there be enough funds to support the arrival of this day?
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