Mobile AR games to reach 420 mn downloads by 2019: Report

NEW DELHI: The Augmented Reality (AR) apps in the mobile games market will generate 420 million downloads annually by 2019, up from 30 million in 2014, according to data from Juniper Research.

The emergence of Head Mounted Devices (HMDs) used in the home, such as Microsoft’s Hololens, will bring a surge in interest for AR games over the next five years. For the time being, however, most AR downloads will occur via smartphones and tablets.

On a more cautious note, the new research, ‘Augmented Reality: Consumer, Enterprise & Vehicles 2015-2019’, observed that there had been little traction in the consumer AR market over the past two years.

Juniper, however, cited lack of compelling cutting-edge apps to captivate consumers, and hence a limited level of interest has been generated in the wider market.

"The app market has stagnated somewhat, with the industry struggling to move beyond AR marketing tools," noted research author Steffen Sorrell. "I do see a shift though – Blippar, for example is moving into visual search, which will open the app to a far wider potential audience."