Apple Vision Pro Adoption Still Struggles, Report Finds
▼ Summary
– Apple’s Vision Pro headset is seeing low consumer appeal, with only 390,000 units shipped in 2024 and a forecast of just 45,000 for a quarter in 2025, a fraction of other Apple product sales.
– Production of the headset was halted by its assembler, Luxshare, at the start of 2025, and Apple has drastically cut its digital advertising spend for the device.
– Analysts cite the device’s high cost, bulky form factor, discomfort, limited battery life, and a lack of native apps as key reasons for its poor sales performance.
– The platform faces an adoption problem with too few users to attract developers and only about 3,000 dedicated apps, far fewer than the iPhone had early on.
– The struggles reflect a broader weak virtual reality market where shipments declined, Meta dominates with cheaper headsets, and even Meta has reduced its marketing spend.
A new analysis reveals that Apple’s high-end Vision Pro headset continues to face significant hurdles in gaining traction with the broader public. Despite the company’s reputation for creating must-have devices, this spatial computing platform has not achieved the widespread adoption many anticipated, pointing to a complex set of challenges beyond just its premium price tag.
Recent market data illustrates the scale of the struggle. Industry estimates indicate Apple shipped approximately 390,000 Vision Pro units throughout 2024. Projections for the most recent quarter of 2025 suggest a sharp decline, with expectations of only about 45,000 new units shipped. To put these figures in perspective, Apple routinely sells millions of its core products like iPhones and MacBooks every single quarter. Reports also suggest that Luxshare, the primary manufacturing partner for the headset, paused production lines early in 2025, signaling a recalibration of supply to match demand.
Marketing efforts for the device have also seen a dramatic pullback. Analysis of digital advertising data shows Apple slashed its ad spending for the Vision Pro by over 95% in major markets like the United States and the United Kingdom over the past year. Furthermore, the company has not pursued an aggressive international expansion for the headset in 2025, keeping its availability largely limited to initial launch regions.
Analysts point to several interconnected factors behind the slow uptake. The high cost, the physical design and weight of the headset, and a limited library of native applications are frequently cited as the primary barriers. Users and reviewers have consistently noted practical issues such as discomfort during prolonged wear and constraints imposed by the battery life. This creates a classic platform dilemma: there are not enough users to justify significant investment from developers, and without a rich ecosystem of compelling apps, it is difficult to attract a critical mass of new users.
Apple states that roughly 3,000 applications have been designed specifically for the visionOS platform. However, this number pales in comparison to the explosive growth seen by the iPhone’s App Store in its early years and is believed to include many specialized, niche programs rather than mainstream consumer software.
The Vision Pro’s challenges are also reflective of a broader cooling in the virtual and augmented reality market. Overall shipments of VR headsets declined globally last year. Meta continues to dominate the sector, commanding around 80% of sales with its more affordable Quest line of devices. Interestingly, even Meta has reportedly reduced its marketing expenditures for VR hardware, suggesting a broader industry reassessment of near-term consumer interest in the category. This environment underscores the difficulty of establishing a new premium computing platform, even for a company with Apple’s formidable resources and design pedigree.
(Source: Mac Rumors)
