Analyst claims HoloLens "sales outlook slipping"

Microsoft has been shipping a commercial version of their HoloLens Augmented Reality headset for some months now, but has refrained from releasing any sales numbers.

Today analyst company Nomura’s Donnie Teng  in an investor note however complained about weak shipments of the device, and has downgraded supplier Himax, noting that “meaningful volume” of the $3000 headset may not happen until the second half of 2017, and that the sales outlook for HoloLens was slipping.

Teng had earlier upgraded the component supplier (who supplies “liquid crystal on silicon,” and “wafer level optics”) on the expectation of better performance of the “the major AR device” and a positive “future AR/VR trend.”

Microsoft may not be looking to make the HoloLens a market success by itself, but rather working to establish their Windows Holographic frameworkas the OS as choice for other AR/VR OEM.

Intel recently announced Project Alloy, an all-in-one VR headset powered by Windows Holographic platform. It is a fully untethered headset and it includes CPU, graphics, batteries, and sensors just like HoloLens. It also has Intel RealSense cameras built into it allowing you to see the outside environment. Intel has built this as a reference platform for OEMs allowing them to create new VR/Mixed-Reality hardware powered by Windows Holographic. Intel will open source Project Alloy details by 2H 2017 and some analysts expecting up to 15 devices in H2 2017 running the Windows 10-based OS.