Oculus: million people used Samsung Gear VR last month

One million people used a Gear VR last month. That says a CEO of Oculus, who worked with Samsung on the headset and, among other things, supplies the software. It is the first time that a concrete figure about the use of glasses has been released.

Oculus can presumably detect the number of users because it makes the software for the Gear VR and that software needs to be connected to the internet for it to work. The group that uses the Gear VR daily – which is smaller than the million monthly users, but how large is not known – sits with the Gear VR on their head for 25 minutes, CEO Max Cohen of Facebook subsidiary Oculus told Recode. Use of the Gear VR will have increased with the release of the Galaxy S7 in March. In many cases, people who bought the device via a pre-order received the normally 99 euros costing VR glasses free of charge.

Although Oculus gives the first indication of the use of the Gear VR, it is not the first figure for the use of vr. Google previously said it had shipped five million Cardboard glasses and 25 million VR apps downloaded from the Play Store. Nothing is known about the sale of other VR glasses, such as the Gear VR, but also Oculus’ own Rift and the HTC Vive.