Baidu subsidiary iQiyi unveils ambitious virtual reality plan
Chinese government expects VR market to more than triple this year
Video streaming service provider iQiyi, a subsidiary of internet search giant Baidu, has unveiled an ambitious plan to establish the world’s largest Chinese-language virtual reality (VR) content platform.
At a conference in Beijing on Thursday, iQiyi’s senior management announced an aggressive 12-month effort that aims to see the company help hardware manufacturing partners sell 10 million VR headsets and mobile VR devices on the mainland, as well as produce at least 10 VR films and 100 VR games that will be free for all of its subscribers.
Tim Gong Yu, the founder and chief executive of iQiyi, said the company’s “expertise in online video and games will serve as a springboard [for us] to build up an open and complete industry [supply] chain that covers VR production, distribution and interaction”.
This cutting-edge technology still remains a futuristic concept to ordinary people in the absence of a VR content platform
“VR hardware development has made significant gains, but this cutting-edge technology still remains a futuristic concept to ordinary people in the absence of a VR content platform,” Gong said.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) predicted in a white paper it published last month that China’s VR consumer market would see explosive growth within a year.
It forecast the size of the domestic VR market to more than triple this year to reach 5.66 billion yuan (HK$6.76 billion), up from an estimated 1.54 billion yuan last year.
The number of people using VR content in China will exceed 1.4 million this year, according to estimates by iResearch.
The MIIT said China would also issue a series of regulations this year on content production, terminal displays and soft platform development.