Omdia: Near-eye display shipments in wearable XR apps to grow by 56%

LONDON – Near-eye display shipments for XR (Extended Reality) applications, including AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality) will grow 56% year-on-year (YoY) to 21.4 million units in 2023 according to the latest Near Eye Display for XR Application Report – 2023 from Omdia.

Conventionally, wearable XR devices are designed as the form factors of head-mounting and smart glasses. Near-eye display shipments declined by 5.7% in 2022 due to weak demand, inflation for budgets, and uncertainty due to the geopolitical conflict.

As for display revenues, Omdia estimates the revenue growth (up 59% YoY) is better than that of the shipments in 2023. This is primarily because brands adopt AMOLED or OLEDoS (OLED on Silicon) in these new products. The higher-priced displays are helpful to drive higher revenue growth.

Display shipments for VR applications account for more than 95% shares out of all XR-used display shipments in 2023, and Omdia estimates the dominance can last till 2026. Due to LTPS TFT LCD and AMOLED with mature manufacturing and affordability, both display technologies applied for VR application obtain higher adoptions and shares.

On the other hand, displays for AR applications are mostly silicon-based, such as LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon), LBS (laser beam scanning), DLP (digital light processing), OLEDoS and LEDoS (micro-LED on silicon). Although OLEDoS is prevalent now, its brightness is far from the requirement of outdoor use, which has strong ambient light interference. LEDoS has much higher brightness. If LEDoS display manufacturing can be actualized in three to five years later, there is potential to adapt into many AR applications. Omdia estimates the timing for LEDoS surging could be in 2027.

Read the full press release here.

Omdia