VR Sales

Shipments of virtual reality headsets tanked 33.7 percent

in the second quarter ahead of new devices and the end

of smartphone bundling, according to IDC data.

In other words, the VR revolution will have to wait...again.

IDC said it views the second quarter data as a "temporary

setback" due to new products such as Oculus Go and HTC

Vive Pro.

What's the problem? Year-ago figures were inflated due to

screenless viewers from Alcatel, Samsung and Alcatel that

were bundled with new smartphones. The screenless viewer

category fell from 1 million headsets in the second quarter a

year ago to 409,000 this year.

The news isn't much better for tethered VR headsets,

which were down 37.3 percent in the second quarter

compared to a year ago. Oculus and Sony couldn't maintain

momentum from price cuts a year ago. HTC did ship close

to 111,000 headsets in the second quarter with Oculus at

102,000 and Sony at 93,000.

On the bright side, standalone VR headsets surged 417.7

percent in the second quarter due to Oculus Go and Xiaomi

Mi VR. Meanwhile, commercial pilots are picking up,

according to IDC as 20 percent of VR headsets in the

second quarter were going to enterprises.