XR makes quiet progress towards an augmented future

Extended reality (XR) has been trying to get on a firm footing for several years now. As a point in case, our latest consumer survey, conducted in December 2023, reveals that 5% of households (on average across the eight major developed countries surveyed) owned an XR headset, a miniscule percentage that has not grown much in recent years. However, a range of tech and market developments should help support XR's future growth. These include a strengthened competitive environment with the entry of Apple into XR; the emergence of advanced AI technology; steady metaverse developments away from the limelight; and continued XR hardware innovation. We consider these developments in more detail in this report, along with their implications for operators and other XR ecosystem players.