The numbers are in from one of the world’s leading technology research firms, and they confirm what the AR industry has been predicting for years: augmented reality is about to overtake virtual reality — and it’s happening faster than most expected.
The Forecast
Global AR display shipments are forecast to reach 21 million units in 2030, surpassing VR display shipments of 19 million units, according to Omdia’s latest XR near-eye display market forecast. That crossover point — where AR outsells VR for the first time — represents a fundamental shift in how the industry and consumers are thinking about immersive technology.
The XR near-eye display market is undergoing a significant structural transformation, with VR display market share forecast to decline from 72% in 2026 to 43% by 2032, while AR displays climb from 28% to 57%. In other words, within six years the market will have almost completely inverted.
Why This Is Happening
The shift isn’t hard to explain. VR headsets are powerful but demanding — they require dedicated space, active engagement, and ask users to disconnect from the real world entirely. AR glasses fit into your life. You wear them commuting, working, travelling. You don’t have to carve out time to use them.
The AI/AR glasses market continues to face a fundamental trade-off between performance, device weight, and battery life, with manufacturers finding it difficult to optimise all three simultaneously. One approach, seen in products such as Ray-Ban Meta, is to remove the display module entirely and focus instead on AI computing and audio-visual input capabilities.
That trade-off is real — but it’s one manufacturers are actively solving. RayNeo’s three new glasses announced today, the holographic waveguide research we covered earlier this week, and the broader pipeline of Android XR devices all represent industry-wide progress toward cracking that weight-performance-battery triangle.
What the Major Players Are Doing
The strategic shift is already visible in company behaviour. Major technology companies including Meta, Apple, Samsung, and Huawei have adjusted their product roadmaps, delaying or scaling back VR headset launches in favour of lightweight AI smart glasses and AR glasses.
Meta’s move into dedicated Best Buy retail spaces centres on glasses, not headsets. Apple pushed Vision Pro 2 back while simultaneously accelerating its lighter glasses roadmap. Samsung launched Galaxy XR glasses ahead of any new VR hardware. Every major player is betting on the same outcome Omdia is now forecasting.
Jay Shao, Principal Analyst in Omdia’s Displays practice, summed it up: “The shift towards lighter devices is redefining the design of smartglasses. As AI becomes an increasingly important part of the user experience, manufacturers are reconsidering the role of displays because of their impact on power consumption and device weight.”
What It Means for the Industry
For consumers, this forecast is good news. More investment in AR means faster innovation, more competition, and better products at lower prices. The AR glasses available in 2030 will be dramatically better than what’s available today — lighter, smarter, longer-lasting, and more stylish.
For investors and brands, the message is equally clear. The companies building AR glasses ecosystems, distribution networks, and developer platforms today are positioning themselves for the dominant consumer hardware category of the next decade.
At AugmentedReality.com, our take: Omdia’s forecast lines up with everything we’ve been seeing in the market this year — the 776% shipment growth figures, Meta’s retail expansion, the wave of new AR glasses launching this autumn from RayNeo, XREAL, Google, and Samsung. The crossover point where AR overtakes VR isn’t a distant theoretical — it’s a 2030 target that the industry is actively building toward right now. What’s striking about Omdia’s data is the speed of the inversion: from VR holding 72% of the market today to AR holding 57% by 2032. That’s not a gradual evolution, that’s a category replacement. We’re living through it in real time.