In a recent response to investors, Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta plans to invest more in its metaverse business, which means the company will “spend” a lot of money on the project over the next three to five years. The immersive digital world of metaverse will eventually make money from the creator economy as people build businesses that sell virtual goods and services. “We want to make VR and AR hardware as affordable as possible for everyone and ensure the digital economy grows,” Zuckerberg said.
The metaverse is roaring
“Next generation core technology”, “future strategic high point”, “21st century disruptive technology”. There are already too many labels being pinned on the metaverse. Behind this is the market’s anxiety about today’s lagging technological innovation. Also, it is a true reflection of the fact that with the global economic downturn and the lack of innovation drivers, all parties are actually hungry for a leading new agenda. As the next-generation Internet industry that supports their existence, the metaverse has become the ideal temple for countless people. The ultimate metaverse will contain technologies such as: Internet, IoT, VR/AR, 3D graphics rendering, AI artificial intelligence, high performance computing, and cloud computing.
Along with this trend, the metaverse hardware sector is active in investment and financing, and the global VR/AR enterprises have raised 8.2 billion yuan this year. Specifically, according to the “Metaverse Industry Chain Ecology White Paper” recently released by the China Electronic Information Industry Development Institute, as of April 2022, global VR/AR enterprises have received more than 43 investment and financing events so far this year. IDC predicts that the total investment scale of global VR/AR will increase to $74.73 billion in 2026, and the compound growth rate will reach 38.5% in 2022-2026.
WiMi builds ecosystem to enter the metaverse
Industry insiders further analyze that the current metaverse applications are dominated by content innovation on the cell phone and PC, including virtual humans, 3D social, 3D meetings, etc. With the increased investment in hardware such as terminal equipment, the industry will be tapped with greater potential. Under this situation, both overseas and domestic tech giants are investing a lot of money to take the lead in the metaverse. In addition to the high-profile announcement Meta and Google, another tech giant, the first stock of metaverse holographic AR, WiMi Hologram Cloud (NASDAQ:WIMI), is also worth mentioning.
It is reported that WiMi has established the Metaverse Division to actively apply VR, AR, big data, AI and other technologies to enhance the next-generation extended reality audiovisual experience. At the same time, with the successful development of a variety of VR and AR hardware devices, WiMi has established a “metaverse ecosystem” covering hardware, software and services with the joint support of technical capabilities and creative content capabilities. WiMi has edges in providing metaverse innovation services for enterprises and users, especially among the Gen Z users.
Generation Z is a term used by American society to classify generations, which refers to people born between 1995 and 2009, i.e. the Internet generation, also known as the Net Generation. Generation Z grew up in a time with strong elements such as the Internet, anime and avatars, and they are used to contact and accept new things. Elements such as ACGN and idol culture have become its symbol. Virtual idols and avatars, gaming and idol culture are the hottest topics among Generation Z. So for users of this generation, products in the form of virtual experiences are more easily accepted and recognized, and have a better chance of spontaneous dissemination.
According to Ariadne, 92.3% of virtual idol fans are between the ages of 19 and 30, and Generation Z constitutes its main consumer group. From the perspective of demand, Generation Z cultural trend and WiMi are a perfect match and can produce a chemical effect. Generation Z’s sense of identity, increasing demand for personalization, and passion for niche culture will inject constant demand into the virtual market. It is worth noting that WiMi has a comprehensive library of holographic IP rights and interests, with virtual holographic content in formats ranging from 3D models to holographic virtual products. There are nearly 5,000 holographic virtual IP content, covering a wide range of content, including holographic animation, virtual live broadcast, virtual idols and virtual social to meet the personalized needs of the Generation Z. In addition, WiMi also cooperates with various content owners to transform high-quality IP into holographic virtual products, which will develop into a more efficient and rich metaverse content ecology creation.
Summary
The concept of metaverse is more ambitious than the real world, and its economic volume will be larger than that of the real world in the future. The industry usually divides the metaverse into seven tiers, covering multiple dimensions from basic technology to ecosystem. Experts point out that the second half of the metaverse is all about software applications and ecosystem. The metaverse requires the use of a large number of software and technology synergies, including algorithmic platforms, rendering and 3D modeling software, as well as application-level operating systems and other software. At present, tech giants focus on the investment layout of VR/AR terminals on the one hand, and content development such as metaverse on the other.
From the domestic and international markets, head players including Meta, Apple, Sony, Byte, etc. are involved in hardware devices and content and software developers to promote the technical development of metaverse virtual experience from multiple perspectives. And the reason for this is to seize the metaverse opportunity and attract a large number of new traffic injections. To sum up, the balance between technology exploration and commercialization for metaverse is becoming a key proposition for companies with different positioning. However, for the development of metaverse, it is preferred to just actively embrace this change, quickly understand the full picture, seek opportunities, and form metaverse response strategies. And as for what will happen in the next 40 years, that remains to be seen.
