Lenovo Group recently announced the company will earmark more than 100 billion RMB (US$15.7 billion) over the next five years on metaverse, the Nikkei Asia reported on April 7. The company already has established three new business units associated with cloud gaming and AR/VR (Argument Reality/Virtual Reality) with an aim to support metaverse applications and help commercial clients capitalize on the metaverse. In addition to its R&D commitments, the company also strives to achieve its vision of becoming net-zero by 2050.
Meanwhile, Sony recently also announced its plan to spend an additional US$1 billion on Epic Game to deepen its presence in the metaverse, following its first US$250 million investment made in July 2020. Leveraging Epic Game’s strong game engine, Sony aims to co-create the future of the metaverse.
The market value of global AR/MR (Augmented Reality)/(Mixed Reality) headset hardware and software is estimated to reach US$3.0 billion and US$2.0 billion, respectively, in 2022, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a division of the III (Institute for Information Industry) and one of leading IT research institutes in Taiwan. The AR/MR headset hardware sector used to outweigh the software sector in terms of market value but the situation is to be reversed after 2022.