MWC technology giants lead the VR craze and the global melee will begin

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On the eve of the opening of MWC 2016 Barcelona Mobile World Congress, Samsung held its 2016 spring new product launch conference. What was different from previous years was that Samsung released its new S7 mobile phone through virtual reality (VR) technology at the conference.

In order to allow everyone at the press conference to experience the VR effect firsthand, Samsung prepared a pair of VR glasses on each seat.

However, the biggest highlight is not this.

During the press conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suddenly appeared, causing a sensation in the audience, overshadowing VR itself.

What is the VR that is making a big splash at MWC?

Zuckerberg is willing to come out to support Samsung because Facebook and Samsung are partners in the VR field. Samsung cooperated with Facebook's VR technology manufacturer Oculus to release Gear VR in September 2014. Gear VR is an HMD device launched by Samsung to be used with its Galaxy high-end smartphones. Oculus was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in March 2014.

Qualcomm's VR report believes that Gear VR helps improve product loyalty. The price of Gear VR itself is not high. The key is that for non-Samsung users, they must use Samsung's high-end smartphones to use Gear VR, which is a big burden. In this respect, Gear VR helps Samsung's smartphone business attract new users.

Qualcomm believes that in the next few years, Gear VR's contribution to Samsung's revenue will be very limited, but it may become a product that prevents Samsung's high-end mobile phone users from switching to other platforms.

In fact, Facebook is also one of the earliest VR developers. After acquiring Oculus in March 2014, Facebook has been determined to turn it into a communication platform.

Some analysts believe that by developing an Oculus application ecosystem, Facebook will be able to easily enter the VR advertising market. Just like television and the Internet, mobile phones have changed the way companies communicate with their customers. VR will bring innovation to the market, and Facebook will become one of the core manufacturers of this innovation.

It is reported that Facebook's efforts in this regard mainly rely on Oculus Rift. The company has stated that it will sell the product at cost price, which means that Oculus Rift may affect Facebook's profit margin. Facebook's current gross profit margin is 83%. It is estimated that Oculus Rift will dilute Facebook's gross profit margin by 100-200 basis points. But from a long-term perspective, the advertising opportunities brought by this move to Facebook will offset the dilution of gross profit margin.

VR deployment has become a trend

In addition to Samsung and Facebook, many technology companies around the world also have significant investments in the VR field.

In the past few years, Apple has acquired four startups related to VR/AR technology. The latest acquisition is Flyby Media, which joined Apple's "secret research department" after the acquisition. They will develop VR/AR device prototypes within a few months.

Another Internet giant, Google (Weibo), started developing Google Glass in 2013. Although the product has been discontinued, Google's ambition to develop VR has not disappeared. In October 2014, Google Capital, a subsidiary of Google, joined hands with Qualcomm and others to invest $542 million in augmented reality company Magic Leap, which then reached a valuation of $12 billion. It is reported that Magic Leap also received an investment of 5.2 billion yuan from Alibaba in February this year.

In addition, HTC and PC game platform developer Valve jointly developed the VR HMD device HTC Vive; Microsoft has cooperated with Autodesk and other companies to develop an engineering AR application, and Microsoft will also launch its own AR product HoloLens; Sony announced that it will officially release the virtual reality helmet Project Mor-pheus that supports PlayStation 4 in the second quarter of 2016, and launched a VR game console product before that.

In the technology circle, there are few industries that are so lively that almost all mainstream technology companies are rushing to enter. As you can see, VR has become a general trend.

China's tech giants are unwilling to be followers

Seeing the entry of international giants, Chinese local companies are naturally not lagging behind, and various players have begun to lay out virtual reality.

At present, large companies engaged in virtual reality in China can be divided into four major camps: the first is smartphone manufacturers, most of which are engaged in hardware layout; the second is video websites, most of which are engaged in software and content level; the third is Internet giants, most of which want to become a platform; the fourth is start-up companies, most of which do not have real competitiveness, but are just joining in the fun or 2VC.

Among the above four types of companies, the ones that are currently attracting the most attention are mobile phone manufacturers and Internet giants.

Among domestic mobile phone manufacturers, Lenovo and Ant Vision have jointly developed the virtual reality portable device Lemeng Ant Vision VR glasses; Meizu has cooperated with domestic VR manufacturer Depth-VR to launch a mobile VR headset; Smartisan Technology has also made preparations in the VR field. VR has become the next smart hardware direction that Smartisan Technology has set its sights on, and Smartisan has also been recruiting VR-related employees.

Even Xiaomi, which has always been unconventional, has come! At Xiaomi's internal annual meeting last month, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun (Weibo) said that Xiaomi will have fun doing things in 2016, one of which includes researching cutting-edge technologies such as VR/robotics.

Among China's technology giants, Baidu entered the virtual reality content market through Baidu Video; Alibaba spent 5.2 billion yuan to buy Magic Leap, which shows that it invested a lot of money.

Tencent also disclosed the progress of a series of Tencent VR projects. Tencent VR Technical Director Li Shuxin said that they had previously developed a mobile version of VR equipment and a mobile phone case solution with a sensor system interaction, but when developing the product, they would start with a PC game console as the entry point. The game console is equipped with a head-mounted device, and then an input and interaction device is provided, forming a closed-loop complete VR device experience.

Li Shuxin also disclosed that Tencent VR plans to launch a consumer version of the product for ordinary users in the second half of 2016.

With so many tech giants joining in, the VR melee has officially arrived.

However, this kind of competition is not new to domestic entrepreneurs. In the past, when group buying was hot, there were thousands of groups competing against each other, and when O2O was hot, there were many entrepreneurs rushing in. However, the final result was that the vast majority were eliminated, and only a few survived.

In the global VR field, a similar outcome is likely to occur.