Extending Possibilities with Mobile Augmented Reality
Commercial use of AR technology exploded owing to the use by giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. By the end of 2020, active AR devices were estimated to rise to 597 million units and are projected to grow to 1.73 billion in the next 4 years. Reports show that the market for AR technology is now worth over $15.3 billion worldwide.
Augmented Reality Opportunities YOur Business Can Explore
Post-COVID-19 the adoption of AR technology is gaining traction owing to the benefits they provide with respect to visualization, annotation, storytelling and more. AR technologies are aiding online learning, shopping, working and more. Mobile AR applications offer significantly enhanced experiences as compared to traditional applications. In fact, a deeper dive into its scope unravels many applications for your business that were not possible through traditional applications.
Mobile Augmented Reality for Simulation
Broadly, AR is defined as “augmenting natural feedback to the operator with simulated cues” while a precise definition of AR is “a form of virtual reality where the participant’s head-mounted display is transparent, allowing a clear view of the real world”. This “simulation” of just about anything has opened up never before imagined possibilities.
Here are two examples- many applications in the tourism industry are now providing an AR view of some of the museums or art galleries with explained content- to get more traction. Education industry is continuously trying to integrate simulation to aid better conceptual learning.
Interactive Gaming and Gamification Features
The gaming industry has been on a rise, and is now bigger than ever. Mobile gaming now makes up 26% of all media consumption hours! The biggest chunk of AR-gamers aren’t teenagers, who were traditionally thought of as the ideal target users, but adults between 24-35 years. This is why AR is finding great results in other industries too, since the user base is already primed for AR experiences.
Outside of gaming, many industries are using AR to improve customer experiences and drive sales, despite the recent restrictions in the post-COVID world. Home décor and furniture businesses, for examples, are able to make faster sales, by providing their customers the ability to digitally decorate rooms and seeing how their rooms would look with the new items using AR-powered apps.
Enhancing Shopping Experience by Visualizations
Imagine stepping into a trial room without having to leave your house or seeing the final outcome of your new home makeover project without going through the hassle and expense of getting everything done first. With AR-powered mobile apps, retailers are offering their customers immersive experiences with their products on the virtual platform. Some of the leading ways retailers are using AR in their mobile apps are:
- Color matching and visualization through AR
- Try as you buy features on e-commerce apps
- Magic mirrors
- Cross-selling and upselling though product pairing and visualization
Provision for Enhanced Advertisement
How Augmented Reality is Making its Mark across industries
20%
more AR engagement since the beginning of 2020
90%
rise in conversion rates for consumers engaging with AR
28%
rise in conversion rate on retailer websites with AR
A Rapidly Growing Technology
AR is helping businesses and applications get better by being more personalized, user-friendly, and precise.
While AR was a concept in the minds of developers for quite some time, it has flourished lately because of the high penetration rate of powerful smartphones for users worldwide. AR is now a mainstream reality.
Google Maps, for example, has made itself infinitely more accurate in the recent past using augmented reality. The GPS restriction that users faced earlier while trying to get to a precise directions is now solved using AR. This is where geo-tagging of your local business also helps, else it might go unidentified in the streets.
Conclusion
It is quite clear that AR in mobile can help businesses gain visibility, reputation, virality and the advanced features that its immersive technology delivers.
Mobile-based AR is a rapidly rising field which shows a lot of promise for supporting both fun and useful tools that can open up new streams of revenue for many businesses in today’s highly digital world. The field is still growing and has wide unexplored potential. Talk to us to learn more about how you can tap into the benefits that AR has to offer.
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Augmented Reality promises to be as influential to our society as the smartphone.
Tim Cook