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Industry rhetoric about AR’s world-changing status sometimes outweighs evidence that it’s captivating consumers today. Though we see some signals, such as lens engagement figures from social AR players, we’re often flying blind when it comes to consumer AR sentiment.
Looking to fill that gap, AR Insider’s research arm ARtillery Intelligence has completed Wave 9 of its annual consumer survey report. Working with consumer survey specialist Thrive Analytics, it wrote questions to be fielded to 50,000+ U.S. adults and produced a report based on the results.
Among the topics: How is mobile AR resonating with everyday consumers? How often are they using it? How satisfied are they? What types of experiences do they like most? How much are they willing to pay for it? And for those who aren’t interested in mobile AR….why not?
Positive Steps
Diving into these questions and starting at the top, what’s mobile AR’s overall penetration and adoption? This year’s survey results peg it at 39 percent of U.S. adults. This is up from 35 percent in Wave 8 of the study, showing positive steps towards AR’s mainstream adoption.
To pause for definitions, the above measures U.S. adults who have used mobile AR at least once. This broad definition lets us start with a baseline, and then drill down. For example, how do these overall usage figures break down by frequency? We’ll circle back to that question.
Another question is how AR’s penetration, represented in these survey results, translates to overall market size. Given that this is a U.S.-based survey, applying the above 39 percent figure to the U.S. adult population (330 million) indicates that roughly 128.7 million adults have tried AR.
As for who these users are, they slightly skew male at 51 percent. Meanwhile, 23 percent are 35-44, while 20 percent are 25-34. This means that 43 percent of AR users are consolidated within the age range of 25-44. As for income levels, usage is evenly distributed across income groups.
Good News & Bad News
Back to frequency, most AR users engage monthly (38 percent), and weekly (27 percent), followed by daily (19 percent). This means that 84 percent of VR users engage monthly or more. This is a strong signal for AR engagement levels, compared to most other forms of consumer technology.
As for trending, weekly and monthly use are up seven and four percentage points, respectively, from Wave 8 of the study. But the bad news is that daily use is down seven percentage points. This should be concerning to mobile AR proponents, as daily usage was previously a strong suit.
Why is this important? Frequency is a key health indicator for mobile apps and experiences. In AR specifically, relatively short sessions (due to arm fatigue) need to be counterbalanced by steady frequency. So the name of the game is to instill replayability in any AR experience.
But on the bright side, weekly and monthly usage are up. This shift from daily to weekly and monthly use could be reflective of a maturing product. Its novelty has worn off to some degree, but it’s settling into steady repeat-use patterns that, while less frequent, are more sustainable.
We’ll pause there and pick things up in the next installment with more consumer survey results and insights. Meanwhile, check out the full report here.