TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, apparently has invested almost 5 billion yuan in acquiring a Chinese VR hardware manufactured named Pico. Notably, TikTok recently developed and launched its Effect Studio feature, allowing developers to build AR effect filters for TikTok videos.
Pico had launched the Neo 3, the biggest rival to another famous VR headset, Quest. Pico’s Neo 3 received positive feedback from its users, and as per a report published by IDC, the company owned the largest market share in China’s VR market in 2020. However, none of the companies has commented on this news yet.
In March 2021, the company completed a round of financing of almost RMB 242 million in B+. Since Neo 3 was launched, sales have exceeded 10 million in 24 hours. Moreover, Pico has also been working on developing the VR content ecosystem. Pico is headquartered in Beijing, and it has set up R&D centers in Qingdao, Japan, and North America. The research team at Pico is constantly working on perfecting the virtual reality technology, interactive technology, market and developer expansion, VR’s large-scale applications, and customer service.
If the news of the acquisition of Pico by Bytedance is true, this incident could be similar to Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus that took place back in 2014. In most of the cases concerning the 5G technology, VR/AR possess the core position.
Moreover, experts have proclaimed that this technology is the most important terminal product after smartphones. At the moment, the VR that is easily available to consumers has become more and more perfect and efficient when it comes to hardware and its content. Big companies such as Facebook, Apple, and Huawei have entered the VR market have only facilitated rapid change. IDC predicts in the “2020 Global AR/VR Market Quarterly Tracking Report” the global AR/VR shipments will reach an all-time high at 76.7 million units in 2024.
