According to the latest report "China VR/AR Devices Retail Market Monthly Tracker" released by third-party organization RUNTO, the omnichannel sales of consumer grade XR devices (including AR and VR) in China reached 261000 units in the first half of 2024. The omnichannel sales of AR devices reached 110000 units, a year-on-year increase of 49%, becoming the main source of overall XR market growth. Specifically, in the first half of the year, the omni channel sales of VR devices were 151000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 41%, indicating that the VR market is facing dual pressures of destocking and reduced consumer interest after a period of rapid growth. In terms of online market, the performance of XR devices is also showing signs of fatigue. Data shows that in the first half of 2024, the sales volume of XR devices in the online open retail market (excluding content e-commerce platforms such as Tiktok and Kwai) accounted for 43.4% of the total sales volume of all channels, with 115000 units, down 17.6% year on year; The sales revenue was 350 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 20.5%. It is worth noting that the market share of VR devices in the overall XR online market in China is gradually being surpassed by AR devices. In the first half of the year, the proportion of online sales of VR devices decreased to 44.5%, while it was as high as 69.4% in the same period last year. The report suggests that the sluggish VR market in the first half of the year is related to multiple factors. On the one hand, VR products are still in the stage of clearing inventory, the pace of new product releases is slowing down, and consumers' willingness to purchase is not strong; On the other hand, the market performance of high-end products such as the highly anticipated Apple Vision Pro has also fallen short of expectations, failing to effectively boost market confidence. In addition, XR products still face challenges in terms of user-friendly interaction, comfortable wearing and use, and rich content ecology, which limits further market expansion. In contrast, the AR device market is growing rapidly. The report shows that the mainstream AR glasses on the market are mainly divided into two types: split type and integrated type. Among them, split type AR glasses dominate the market, accounting for 80.7% of sales. At the same time, AR devices using Micro LED screens and optical waveguide solutions have gradually gained market favor, occupying 13.3% of the overall market share. The report states that compared to personal computers and mobile phones, AR glasses themselves have the characteristics of covering both visual and auditory aspects, and are more suitable for voice dialogue interaction. As a carrier of AI, they have natural advantages; By enhancing the natural language processing capability of AR glasses, AI models can enable the latter to achieve more accurate semantic understanding and more efficient instruction recognition. On the basis of improving device interaction experience, the application of AI has also expanded the application scenarios of AR, such as real-time translation, navigation, video photography, etc. AI+AR will accelerate the transformation of smart glasses from audio-visual entertainment devices to advanced devices with smartphone functions. (New Society)