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Stereovision PCs at the Tipping Point

Analyst Jon Peddie says S3D PCs will thrive if there is good content to feed demand

Robert Dow

TIBURON, CA-May 27, 2010-Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry’s research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia just completed an in-depth look at the emerging Stereo 3D (S3D) PC market. Titled, “Stereovision in PCs,” The report finds that the S3D market is poised for rapid growth in the immediate future. Close to one million dedicated S3D PCs will ship in 2010. That number will grow to 75 million by 2014 as S3D becomes ubiquitous.

Table 1: Growth rates from 2010 to 2014
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 CAGR
PCs sold for S3D 0.86 6.10 29.54 60.65 75.00 206%
S3D capable GPUs 125.03 134.4 141 144.62 149.99 5%
(Shipments in M units)

Although most PCs will be S3D capable due to the GPUs that are in them, not all PCs will be S3D PCs because they need a special monitor, glasses, and appropriate content. .However, S3D PCs will be very attractive to several important market segments. JPR expects to see S3D PCs achieve a much higher growth rate than their more traditional counterparts and, of course, they will have a higher ASP. As a result, the S3D PC market will be very attractive to PC manufacturers and content suppliers.

JPR’s report, provides forecasts for the unit sales of the seven major applications that will take advantage of S3D on the PC:

  1. PC: Games
  2. Blu-ray DVD movies
  3. Streaming TV (IP TV)
  4. Photo-editing
  5. Home video editing
  6. Streaming video (from YouTube and other sites)
  7. Professional graphics (CAD and visualization)

The expected growth rate of revenue in the hardware and content markets is very promising. JPR forecasts $34 Billion by 2014.

Table 2: S3D Market Value 2010 to 2014
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 CAGR
HW Market value ($M) $640 $4,150 $16,749 $22,351 $24,876 150%
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 CAGR
Content market Value ($M) $51 $366 $1,772 $3,639 $4,500 206%

“Gaming will be the vehicle for kick-starting the S3D PC market,” said Jon Peddie. “The gaming segment has the largest inventory of content and the most vocal enthusiasts who will spread the word and show their friends and families what it looks like and what it can do. They will ignite the imagination of the non-gamers. However, our forecast is that the S3D market will soar within the next three years based on the expectation that good quality content will be produced, and the incremental cost for S3D will diminish, if not disappear. Otherwise history will repeat itself and it will be reduced to a small volume novelty market. “