Management consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) expects a strong surge in growth for products and services for the so-called metaverse. “The market for augmented reality will exceed the 100 billion US dollar mark this year,” said BCG partner Tibor Mérey in an interview with the German business magazine Capital. The trillion mark will be reached before 2030, Mérey predicts. Metaverse sales include revenues from hardware, software and services, including applications for augmented and virtual reality.
The metaverse, the next stage of the Internet and a kind of “second life,” revolves around the simulation of physical presence in virtual worlds. In the future, users will not only view the Internet on a screen but immerse themselves in it, especially with the help of virtual reality glasses. The devices will also be able to transmit users’ facial expressions and gestures. The U.S. companies Microsoft and Meta, for example, are working on simulating human proximity. According to BCG partner Mérey, however, the development of the metaverse does not only concern the large tech groups. “An increasingly large part of life will take place in the digital world – and that’s why the economy will also migrate there.” In principle, therefore, the metaverse is economically relevant for all industries, he said. In the sporting goods sector, a number of companies have already entered the metaverse – first and foremost Nike and Adidas, but most recently also Puma, ABG, Skechers and several others – with services and virtual products to be worn or used by the users’ avatars.
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