Developers plough cash into AR development

The annual amount is expected to top US$2.5 billion in 2018, as AR becomes an everyday part of mobile experiences, particularly in retail and marketing. 

This application segment accounts for 68% of the developer spend in 2013, with product enhancement and standalone apps contributing 22% and 10% of the total, respectively.

ABI Research predicts that AR will become a significant enabler for near the Internet of Everything, and big-data analytics. 

Practice director Dan Shey said: “In a world where a countless number of physical objects and structures will be connected by sensors, AR can serve as a visualization medium that will make the sensor data situational, bridged to the real-world surroundings. 

“The consumer aspect is unsurprisingly making most of the headlines here, but we’d expect smart eyewear to initially make more waves in transforming the enterprise. Google Glass, like the smart-glass pioneer Vuzix, will find various use cases in verticals such as engineering, logistics, and healthcare.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s “Cloud Strategies for Augmented Reality” study, which is part of the Cloud Content and Services Research Service.