AR market: tools and advantages for your startup

Augmented reality is a cutting-edge technology that gives an enhanced version of the real physical world. This is achieved through the use of digital visual elements, sound, or other sensory stimuli delivered. AR has a great potential to improve industries like healthcare, commerce, entertainment, and education. Hence, businesses from different industries are using AR to provide a unique and interactive experience to customers.

The AR technology consists of three core components:

- a mobile device (smartphone/tablet) with a built-in camera;

- a specially developed app that contains virtual information;

- a mark, GPS-coordinates, or a marker (a real object, its detail, or printed image) which make the mobile app work;

The mark allows a program to link the AR information with the external world and deliver the image to the smartphone display or special glasses. Though sometimes these three elements are not sufficient and you might need extra technology.

Statistics

The global augmented reality market size was estimated at $17,6 billion in 2020. In 2021, it exceeded $26 billion and is projected to reach $88 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 44%. By 2022, there are going to be approximately 3.5 billion AR users. This accounts for more than 25% of the world’s population. In the US alone, 83.1 million people are expected to use AR at least once a month in 2020.

Why is AR relevant for retail?

Being a tool for displaying digital objects, AR is used to visualize and demonstrate any kind of goods. The number of users is growing with each passing day. AR in business helps improve customer experience, raise sales and reduce risks of product returns.

71% of consumers say they would shop more often if they used AR. The techonlogy has the unique ability to communicate details about the look and feel of a product that traditional photos just can’t match. With AR, customers are better able to make confident buying decisions, which leads to increased satisfaction and strong customer loyalty.

However, retailers are slowly adopting AR in the buying process. Only 1% of retailers are currently using AR in their customer experience. For retailers that bring in most of their sales online, AR can help customers to have a more accurate understanding of how a product is going to look and feel in their space. Being able to communicate the details about a product through AR can help customers understand what they’re buying, making it easier to meet customer expectations, which leads to higher post-purchase satisfaction.

What profit does AR bring to businesses?

Worldwide brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Apple, Burger King, and Lego are implementing the AR technology in their marketing communicational campaigns more and more often. This is what they can do with the help of AR:

- demonstrate product USP (unique selling proposition);

- stimulate customers to purchase;

- increase sales;

- raise brand awareness;

- boost the target audience’ involvement;

- draw people’s attention to the brand;

- contribute to the company’s memorability;

- generate UGC content.

AR possibilities

One of the main features of augmented reality is going beyond normal boundaries by means of visual effects. Adding effects of the gradual appearance of goods, modifying the setting, or integrating AR for promoting companies using realistic models is only part of the technology capabilities.

Thanks to AR, retailers can show the way clothes fit, create virtual fitting rooms, integrate entire stores into the AR portal, and enable customers to change their home interior in real-time.

Companies are developing AR-based apps to track, identify, and resolve technical issues. In addition, augmented reality is used in retrofitting, assembling, manufacturing, and repairing production lines. As handheld and wearable devices become more popular, the demand for mobile AR technology grows.

How businesses are implementing AR

Creating objects

To see an AR object, you need to point the camera at a marker, and the image will emerge on the screen of your smartphone or tablet. Augmented reality can be formed not only on the basis of an image. It can also include, for example, compass readings, gyroscope, 3D models - without this, it is impossible to create a three-dimensional object visible from different angles.

Demonstration of presentations

Augmented reality allows you to make a presentation anywhere, show how the object will look from all sides, and even make the perception of the object interactive. To do this, you only need a program (application), a display with a camera, and a marker printed on a sheet. When you point the camera at the printout, an object will appear on the screen. However, for the full effect of presence, viewers will need special glasses or a helmet.

Medical diagnostics

In medical diagnostics, there is not always direct access to the information base on which an additional reality is built. In this case, AR technology uses data from high-precision diagnostic devices, such as MRI, computed tomography, ultrasound diagnostics, X-rays, etc. They are the basis to which augmented reality is attached, and the markers are certain organs or points. The image of the internal state of the patient's body is displayed on the doctor's monitor.

Treatment

When it comes to psychiatry and psychotherapy, there are AR devices that help patients get rid of or be in control of their disorders. Barcelona-based company Psious Inc. has developed a technology that allows you to simulate situations that provoke phobias, for example, fear of confined spaces, airplane flights, or spiders. Under the supervision of specialists, a phobic person undergoes a gradual adaptation to a stressful situation.

Distance education

AR technologies are a ready-to-use tool for this field. There are certain innovations in the methods of conducting classes in a virtual laboratory or applications that create the effect of being present at a real operation in a remote operating room or on the battlefield in the distant past.

Visual data management

Augmented reality allows you to translate iconic or digital information into a more easily perceived visual and make the process of perceiving information interactive. In the use of AR devices when monitoring the environment while driving a car, feedback is provided. Data management is carried out in voice mode.

Architectural visualization

This is a demonstration of an object under construction from any point of view and from the inside. This requires special markers in the building itself. By pointing a video camera at them, you can get a variety of images, and with the help of simple manipulations on the display, expand the object at any angle, see the internal structure or disassemble the building by floors.

Mobile AR

One of the core segments of the AR market is mobile AR. It takes advantage of the great abundance of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices the global population has access to. In 2021, the number of mobile AR users is expected to exceed 800 million and is projected to reach 1.7 billion by 2024. Growth is forecasted in both the enterprise and consumer segments, including digital AR experiences. One of the most famous cases of this is Pokémon Go, the location-based AR mobile game, with its in-app purchases accounting for a large proportion of consumer mobile AR spending.

Platforms

AR is also popular for its availability — you only need a smartphone to interact. So the success of AR implementation also depends on the platform selected.

For native integration of AR, it’s better to use web platforms since users don’t have to download an app or proceed to another website. It means that the entry threshold is low.

A mobile app is very effective for displaying objects of high quality and perfectly suits furniture retailers.

AR in social media like Instagram or Snapchat possesses a higher level of virality. However, it is more limited in terms of content size which affects its limited functionality. For instance, it’s challenging to view several objects at the same time and configure them as well.

To sum up, it will be safe to say that AR can streamline your business and make it more likely to bring profit. Having dealt with the AR market challenges, you can easily outpace your competitors by offering an innovative solution to customers and making your company AR-based.