Capital flocks to virtual reality, and more than 30 A-share companies join the game

VR has entered the consumer market from a geek topic in the past 2015, and 2016 is the first year of VR use. Capital flow can also be used as evidence. With the gradual maturity and industrialization of virtual reality technology, A-share listed companies have regarded it as a major investment direction. According to statistics from public channels such as announcements and investor interactions, in 2015, more than 30 companies have intended to or have entered the virtual VR business.

VR (Virtual Reality, VR) has entered the consumer market from a geek topic in the past 2015, and 2016 is the first year of VR use. Capital flows can also serve as evidence: hot money is pouring here.

Recently, Xinwangda, which specializes in lithium-ion battery modules, has become a new member of VR. The company issued an announcement on January 6 stating that the company decided to establish a VR Wearable Division to be fully responsible for the company's VR smart wearable device-related business.

Previously, at the end of 2015, Ant Vision, the leading domestic virtual reality hardware manufacturer, announced that it had received RMB 300 million in financing. The investment company was an A-share listed company Gao Xinxing. After this round of financing, Ant Vision's valuation reached RMB 830 million. AntVision focuses on wearable devices such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and holographic reality. On November 16, Ant Vision and Lenovo cooperated to launch Le Meng Ant Vision VR glasses, and product shipments are expected to reach millions of units.

According to relevant data, the market size of China's virtual reality industry in 2015 was 1.54 billion yuan, which is expected to reach 5.66 billion yuan in 2016, and the market size is expected to exceed 55 billion yuan in 2020.

With the gradual maturity and industrialization of virtual reality technology, A-share listed companies have regarded it as a major investment direction. According to statistics from public channels such as announcements and investor interactions, in 2015, more than 30 companies have intended to or have entered the virtual VR business.

Use hardware to take the lead in layout

"Speaking of VR, everyone thinks of entertainment applications such as helmets and glasses." Zheng, a doctoral student in the interaction design direction of the computer science department of a top overseas university, told reporters.

Looking back on A-shares, when listed companies such as LeTV and Stormwind Technology took the lead in deploying, they strived to use a series of hardware products to leverage the entire VR

ecosystem. On December 23, 2015, LeTV announced its VR strategy and released its first terminal hardware product--The mobile phone VR helmet LeVR COOL1 is equipped with the EUI VR version of the operating system. It is also equipped with a top-of-the-line LeTV super mobile phone, which is used with mobile VR content. LeEco's future terminal products will include mobile VR and all-in-one VR.

Storm Mirror, a joint-stock company of Stormwind Technology, has released two new VR products-the Storm Mirror all-in-one machine "Devil King" and Storm Mirror 4. As a project incubated within Storm, Storm Mirror has received the first round of strategic investment in early 2015. The investors include Huayi Brothers, Tianyin, and Aishidesonghe Capital, accounting for a total of 19% of the shares.

On December 10, 2015, BOE announced that it plans to invest 100 million yuan to establish BOE Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. to build a smart wear business development platform. The main products include VR glasses.

According to Gartner, sales of VR devices will reach 25 million units by the end of 2018.

VR technology companies become hot spots for mergers

and acquisitions. In fact, since 2015, domestic and foreign related technology companies have become hot targets for A-share mergers and acquisitions and fixed-value additions, representing companies including Liaison Interaction, Annie Shares, etc.

Liaison Interactive announced in May 2015 that Digital Horizon (Hong Kong), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, plans to increase the capital of Avegant Company in the United States with its own funds of US$15 million to obtain a preferred equity of 21.02% of its total share capital.

Annie shares announced that it would increase its capital by 9.3 million yuan in Yanying Digital, increasing its shareholding ratio to 10% equity. Zhongying Digital mainly provides image-related technical services to game manufacturers and film and television programs. It also launched a VR project in April to develop children's education products using VR technology.

In addition, Tongzhou Electronics invested 150 million yuan to establish Gongqing City Lielong Technology Development Co., Ltd., Cixing Shares acquired 35% equity of Shengyu Interactive for 6.8 million yuan, and Dafu Technology participated in the fixed increase project of Huayang Microelectronics, a new board company., etc., intelligent interaction and VR are important contents.

Enterprise-level VR may be a breakthrough.

"In fact, compared with entertainment-level VR applications, I am more optimistic about enterprise-level VR applications that are used for development or productivity tools, or for education and training." Zheng told reporters. "As entertainment tools, too high prices will have an impact on end consumers, while in contrast, these people who are users of productivity tools will accept these technologies more quickly."

In fact, there is another category of A-share listed companies that use their field as a breakthrough in VR technology applications, and some have begun to move towards market applications, mainly concentrated in education, training, media publishing and other sub-fields.

Sichuan University Zhisheng recently announced that the first giant screen three-dimensional interactive science popularization experience system built at Sichuan University is in the final debugging stage. The company said that Sichuan University Zhisheng has more than 10 years of accumulation in the field of virtual reality technology, and many products have been sold, mainly for the aviation, air traffic control and science popularization markets. However, there are currently no VR products for ordinary consumers.

Anhui New Media and Phoenix Media in the field of media publishing are also trying to apply VR technology to the field of publishing education. Anhui New Media recently announced that in its first fixed increase of no more than 2 billion yuan after listing, it plans to invest 1.75 billion yuan in investment to build an intelligent learning all-media platform, including creating an experiential style based on VR digital education content and digital courseware."Digital classroom" has become an important content.

Phoenix Media plans to indirectly hold a stake in VR technology through capital increase. The company announced in November that it plans to increase its capital by 80 million yuan in its wholly-owned subsidiary Jiangsu Phoenix Vocational Education Book Co., Ltd. After the capital increase was completed, Phoenix Vocational Education acquired the 51% equity held by the original shareholder of Xiamen Chuangyi Software Co., Ltd. with a capital increase of 77.265 million yuan and became its controlling shareholder. Xiamen Chuangyi is the only cooperative unit of the Institute of Vocational and Technical Education Center of the Ministry of Education.

"I suspect that VR may be used in the offline experience market in China this year. Everyone will pay more attention to the application of VR in industrial production, design, education, simulation, such as driving simulation." Zheng told reporters,"But it depends on the reaction of the market. Of course, developers are also very important. Without developers, the entire ecosystem cannot stand up."

Editor: vian