Taiwan’s HTC seeks fresh growth from virtual reality business

Struggling Taiwanese consumer electronics supplier HTC is pinning its hopes for a turnaround on the company’s nascent virtual reality (VR) business, as global demand for the technology could potentially rival that for smartphones, according to the head of its VR operation in China.

“VR is the industry we will still be talking about in the next 50 or 100 years,” Alvin Graylin, China president of HTC’s Vive virtual reality system, told the South China Morning Post. “It is not just me, as all the [HTC] executives are thinking the same way.”

Virtual reality immerses a user in an imagined world, with the aid of an opaque headset, such as HTC’s Vive and Google’s Daydream platform for Android smartphones.

Augmented reality (AR), meanwhile, provides an overlay of digital imagery onto the real world with the use of a clear headset like Microsoft’s HoloLens or an advanced smartphone that supports the technology, such as Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro.

Graylin pointed out that global market demand for VR hardware and content is poised for steady growth over the next few years, which could catch up with the growth of the smartphone industry.

HTC launched its high-end Vive headset, which was co-developed with US-based video game company Valve Corp, in April last year.