Windows Mixed Reality headsets see further market share loss in latest SteamVR numbers

Steam’s Hardware Survey numbers are out for April 2018, which give us a rare look into the market share of the various VR headsets, due to Steam’s cross-platform support and attractive library of VR games and other applications.

We reported last month on Windows Mixed Reality headsets actually losing market share, despite steep price cuts, and this month the trend has continued, confirming it was not just a minor statistical fluctuation.

In March 2018 WMR’s share of the headset market stood at 5.32%, down from 5.36% in February 2018. In April 2018 there was further loss, down to 5.04%, threatening to drop below 5% soon.

HTC’s Vive headset actually clawed back some share, rising from 44.06% in March 2018 to 45.14% in April 2018. This appears to be mainly at the expensive of Oculus Rift’s headsets, which dropped from 50.62% to 49.33% usage share.

Windows Mixed Reality headsets continue to drop in price, hitting lows of around $199 to $250, even in Europe, but these fire sales do not appear to have impacted usage share yet. It remains to be seen if the situation can be turned around, but certainly what has been missing so far has been a concerted marketing push by Microsoft to address the adoption of this major feature of their operating system.

Last month’s numbers can be seen here.