Meta is fairly tight-lipped when it comes to detailing just how many headsets it sells, although there are a few ways to gauge the platform’s popularity, one of which is fresh downloads of its required companion app, Meta Horizon, available on Android and iOS devices.

Citing data obtained by independent analyst Omdia, Game Developer (via Forbes) notes that downloads of the Meta Horizon app fell by 27% on Christmas Day 2024 when compared to 2023, which is historically the app’s yearly peak for downloads.

The chart below, courtesy of Omdia and Sensor Tower, also tracks some of the biggest moments in Meta’s successive Quest releases, including the launch of Quest 2 in October 2020 and its record-setting sales the following year, the release of Quest 3 in October 2023, and the release Quest 3S in October 2024.

Note: Quest 3S is the company’s latest mixed reality headset, which packs in Quest 3’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset and full-color mixed reality capabilities, as well as Quest 2’s older displays and bulkier Fresnel lenses.

Quest 3S is an excellent headset if you only have $300 to spend, although we still recommend springing for Quest 3, priced at $500.

Image courtesy Omdia via Game Developer

That’s not the whole story though. Notably, the chart above doesn’t take into account re-downloads, app updates, or subsequent downloads on new or additional devices for an existing iOS/Google Play account. It also doesn’t take into account users who already own a Quest device and are adding a new one to their account, such as a user upgrading from Quest 2 to Quest 3S.

As Game Developer notes, other factors that may detract from linking app downloads directly to headset sales include second-hand sales, headset sharing, and non-owners downloading the app to explore the app store.

Quest 3S (left), Quest 3 (right) | Images courtesy Meta

In lieu of official data, another barometer is third-party retailers. Citing data from Amazon product pages, Game Developer notes that Meta sold over 160,000 Quest headsets in November 2024 across eight countries, which represents a 16% decrease in sales on Amazon year-over-year. Two-thirds of those headsets were Quest 3S, while the remainder was Quest 3, according to the report.

On the flipside, Quest 3S was the top-selling console on Amazon US in 2024, beating out Switch, PlayStation 5 Pro, and both Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X hardware refreshes.

SEE ALSO
'Beat Saber' is Nearing 10 Million Unit Sales on Quest Alone

Still, the decrease in app downloads and year-over-year Amazon sales may suggest a cooling of enthusiasm compared to the Quest 2 era, which set the bar exceptionally high. According to Omdia’s data, Meta managed to more than double overall app downloads in the year after Quest 2 was initially released, and nearly triple the number of downloads that following Christmas.

Only time will tell how much gas Meta effectively puts behind Quest 3 and Quest 3S, and how many big (and likely exclusive) games it can fund to move the needle in this year’s long ramp up to the holiday season. In an effort to bolster Quest 3S sales, Meta has actually discounted the largest storage variant of Quest 3S (256GB) by $50 for a limited time, bringing it to $350, which comes in addition a free copy of the highly-rated Batman: Arkham Shadow and three-month trial of Quest+, the platform’s games subscription service.

Whether these trends signal a plateau in the VR market or simply a shift in consumer priorities is an open question, but one thing remains clear: Meta’s Quest line is sill the dominant force in the evolution of consumer VR.

But maybe that’s changing? Google probably hopes so.

Update (January 20th, 2025): We’ve altered the headline of this article to better underline that the 27% drop is a year-over-year figure for the Meta Horizon smartphone app, and not the ecosystem as a whole.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Octogod

    Exceptional analysis.

    To add to this, Meta prioritized paid apps on the store in previous years. In 2024, they gave equal weight to free titles, Horizon Worlds titles, and paid titles. This means the numbers are more dour than we see here, as the numbers from August on are mainly free downloads.

    If we just make a guess that 50% of titles were free, which seems generous, then we can see the paid market has dropped to 25% of what it was in 2021.

    • 石雨濛

      Agree. Compare a Nintendo Switch (and now Switch 2) vrs the garbage quest games, the answer is a no brainer for most. Nintendo wins every time.

  • VrSuCkEr

    Maybe they more than "hopes so" and are actively making the app downloads fail given that the target market is mostly on Android rather than iPhones!

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      This is about holiday sales in the US, where iPhones have a much larger marketshare (~57%) than in the rest of the world (~28%), and headsets that will mostly end up in the hands of US teens, where iPhones absolutely dominate (~87%).

      • VrSuCkEr

        Well then, Apple probably hopes so too! Especially if they are going to move down-market soon.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Apple has good reason to "hope so". A major cause for the iPhone's dominance with US teens is iMessage and the green/blue bubble distinction. While in Europe Meta's cross-platform WhatsApp is the market leader, in the US there is a certain social pressure to own an iOS device just to be able to participate in online communication.

          So while teens currently dominate the Quest user base focused on gaming, Apple has a pretty large lever with which they one day could convert them to Apple Vision users, once these become affordable. Similar to Google being able to draw Android phone users with PlayStore access, Apple can draw iPhone users with App Store access. But in addition they already have excellent integration with Facetime and iMessage, the most popular messaging service in the US with 2bn monthly users worldwide, that is basically a must-have among the currently largest Quest user group.

  • Onesirian

    I got a 3s for Christmas but already had the app for two years. No need to re-download. I'm wondering how to account for this accurately in the stats

  • One of the reasons may be that the Quest 2 was very popular, and people having a Quest 2 are not upgrading to a Quest 3S

  • LP

    Remind me how many meta bought out studios and how many games they ended up releasing?

    • Mateusz Jakubczyk

      Since Quest 2 was released? They bought 10 studios, released 5 games. Armature Studio released a port of Resident Evil 4. Sanzaru Games made Asgard's Wrath 2. Camouflaj released Batman and an Iron Man port. Ready at Dawn released Meta's last PCVR game, Lone Echo 2, but unfortunately the studio was closed. The next three studios are developing their existing games, which are money-making machines: BitBox VR is developing Population One, Within is making money on Supernatural subscriptions, and Beat Games is releasing more DLCs for Beat Saber, which has already sold 10 million on Meta Quests. It is unknown what the other studios are doing, Downpour Interactive (probably making Onward 2) and Twisted Pixel (we'll probably find out what they're working on soon). As for Unit 2 Games, I have no idea what they're doing, maybe they're involved in developing Horizon Worlds. In any case, Meta is now focusing on releasing one AAA title per year, so there's no point in counting on all the studios releasing games at once.

      Additionally, through the Oculus Publishing Ignition program, Meta is helping smaller studios create and finance hundreds more games for Quest.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    TL;DR: The post-Christmas Horizon app install numbers are mostly an indicator of Quest being a less popular Christmas present in 2024, which may have a number of reasons; the drop is pretty much only about new VR users, not HMDs sold overall, but an indicator that depending on huge holiday sales is bad for Meta.

    New installations are mostly an indicator of users new to VR, even if there are some inaccuracies from reinstalls etc. People upgrading from Quest 2 with the Horizon app installed already wouldn't impact the download statistics.

    We always assumed that with the hardware getting better and the software catalogue improving, Quest would attract more new users, so new installs indicating new users should grow over time. Overall headset sales may still be growing due to existing users upgrading, only the user base isn't growing as fast as previously.

    As we are talking about huge install spikes at Christmas, it mostly means that Quest has become less attractive as a Christmas present, for which there may be many reasons. For one Quest 3S sold for USD 299 in 2024 compared to Quest 2 for USD 249 in 2023, so 20% more. During 2021, when Quest 2 sales peaked, there were serious shortages that for example made it very hard/expensive to give the much wanted PS5 as a present, causing some/many to pick up a Quest as a readily available alternative. 2024 there were no real shortages, not even for GPUs, so there were lots of alternatives. And from consumer studies we know that more than 25% of all US teens had access to a VR HMD already two years ago, about the same number was thinking about getting one, and 1/3rd of the teens weren't interested at all. So the main Christmas present target group is by now already somewhat saturated.

    Those gifted a new Quest as an upgrade would again not create a new download, and parents may be reluctant to buy a new headset if the previous one only saw little use. The bigger problem might be neither the Quest 3S nor the software, both of which were improved a lot, but Meta so heavily depending on Quest given out as Christmas presents to grow the userbase. There the price may be more important than the specs, with Quest 3S not perceived as providing enough benefit for the price.

    Ideally you want your customers to buy your product with their own money because they value it high enough, instead of selling mostly to a group of people that often will not understand the specs, not even using it themselves, instead just passing the headset to someone else. This has not only consequences for the hardware sales, but also for software, as someone who actually paid for the device will probably be more willing to also buy apps to make the investment worthwhile, while someone who got it for free will be drawn more to apps that keep the cost at zero.

    • Dragon Marble

      This is particularly bad for the future of AAA gaming on Quest. Just like VR as a whole, this segment needed a jumpstart before it could exist on its own. If that was Meta's intention (judging by its investments in Batman and Asgard), it shot its own foot by opening the floodgate of App Lab games at the same time — and by giving Batman and Quest+ for free to new Quest owners. Metro and Behemoth never managed to top the charts, and have now completely disappeared. I am afraid the future of Quest gaming is I Am Anything But Great.

      • Peter vasseur

        Because they probably run like crap in the stand alone. Which is why the bomb game Arken Age isn’t in the platform. Real games and not QuickTime games can’t run on the under power mobile chipsets. I’ll keep enjoying my psvr2 /pc vr gaming thank you very much.

        • Dragon Marble

          Arken Age is a good game, but it's no AAA.

          AAA is not about graphics, nor VR mechanics; it's about those things only money can buy: story, acting, music and cinematics. They make a game more than a game. Arken Age has none of them (or some homemade, filler versions of them).

          You can say you are fine with low-budget but good-quality games. I'll respect that. But real AAA games can only exist on a platform with a large player base, which is the Quest platform.

          So, before you shit on Quest next time, understand that that's what gave you Metro and Behemoth.

          • Peter vasseur

            That’s not true behemoth was announced for psvr2 before any mention of quest. While I’ll agree they have “ the most Hmd sold” that doesn’t make it’s the best place to play any the only place that can make money. The dev that made max mustard, said he sold way more copies of his game on psvr2. Numbers don’t mean users. I bet around 75% of quest headsets were bought for casuals. Which once the gimmick wore off it sits and collects dust. Half of the remaining 25% probably uses their quest with pc most of the time. Unless you’re playing a low budget game like beat saber where power doesn’t matter. Meta quest is a glass tiger. The illusion of their success isn’t because of legit sales. It’s because meta gets billion in funding to subsidize their hmd which essentially is buying market share. With distorted prices this actually hurting the industry, by distorting the economic landscape.

            I’ll take a pc or psvr2 any day over a stand alone lowest quality version quest game. As for what you think encompasses a aaa game. Graphics and gameplay don’t matter? Wow without those you don’t have a a game you have an idea. No matter how good the story, if it looks like crap and plays like crap it’s crap Not aaa. Regardless of what your opinion of what a aaa game is. The fact is the quest is to weak to run Arken age. And that’s why aliens was delayed.

            Quest is a kiddy hmd, for new vr users and casuals. Once you hook it to a pc then it graduates from elementary school.

          • Mateusz Jakubczyk

            "That’s not true behemoth was announced for psvr2 before any mention of quest" – this is BS, Behemoth was first announced at Meta Connect 2022.

            "The dev that made max mustard, said he sold way more copies of his game on psvr2" – another lie, the devs of Max Mustard didn't say that the game sold better on PSVR2 than on Quest, only that it sold faster in the first two weeks. We don't know anything about the overall sales results.

  • Ondrej

    Market sees VR googles as a quirky motion toy. Just like Wii – with boom and fade – minus the mainstream casual appeal, so the scale is much smaller, but the product perception is similar.

    XR would need to cross the threshold "smartphone but better and more convenient" to become mainstream and at acceptable price, but the technology to do that doesn't exist, not even in labs.

    Meta Orion glasses aren't even close and they would be crazy expensive to make today. Any laptop 30 years ago was better at displaying a video than Orion with its unusable transparent blacks. So XR industry is effectively still decades behind smartphones and laptops.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Funny how things are taken as facts by some bogus "research"firm, while it is based on something from which you can't really say anything. If they had actual salesnumbers of the headset or actual salesnumbers from the metastore, ok, but now it's just like reading thealeaves, just pulling a number out of their backsides.
    But hee, they got their free advertisement and 15 minutes of fame…

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      We've all been reading tea leaves for a decade, as the only HMD sales numbers we ever got from Meta were for the Rift DK1 and DK2. And only Sony ever published how many of their actual consumer HMD sold when they told us about selling 5mn PSVR1.

      That is of course far from ideal, but also means that it is rather unfair to call Omdia a "bogus research firm" basically making things up just to generate attention, when reallly nobody other than Meta has the sales numbers you demand, and everybody can only try to piece things together indirectly from Steam survey, supply chain leaks, analyst estimates, Amazon sales, Qualcomm CEOs accidental number reveals or only somewhat relevant downloads of the Horizon app on iPhones. Having to rely on "better than nothing" approximation with unknown accuracy is simply a consequence of VR companies not being willing to talk numbers.

  • Hussain X

    One way new Quest users come in is through checking out someone else's Quest headset since VR needs to be tried to be understood. So it means new Quest owners probably know someone who has a Quest. That someone maybe heard Quest updates around Christmas were bricking headsets. That someone told the new owner not to yet switch on headset so there was no need to download the Quest app at the time on and around Christmas (or they heard about it themselves).

    Also on an a annual basis, total 2024 downloads were slightly higher than 2023. So the 27% fall from one Christmas day to another Christmas day may not be as bad as it seems.

  • Peter vasseur

    Yeah because most quest games are the tech demo crap we got during tue first gen. Its lack of power holds back the industry. People get tired of demo masquerading as games. Once the luster of vr wears a lil, you need real software to keep people interested. Which is why meta sales are down along with software.

    • kakek

      Tech is not ready for VR. Turns out it needed to be nomad. But at the same time needed more coloring power than we could put in nomad form.
      wen are probably still 10 years away / 3 gens away from quest headsets with enough power to make real games. That is without compromising on game design or requiring alyx level of optimisations.

  • eadVrim

    Are there any statistics of the average time spent in VR by a Q3 owner in comparison with a Q3S owner.

  • kakek

    I really wonder what happened at ready at dawn. Lone echo 1 and 2 were awesome games.
    I understand that PCVR is dead, but that studio had proved their capacity to release excellent titles.
    why dismantle them rather than pour them to work on a quest game ?

  • Jeremiah

    I'm just not convinced it's worth getting a Quest 3 yet, there isn't enough killer apps. The only reason I've been tempted at all is because of the Arkham game, but I'm holding out (a fools) hope that it might come to the Quest 2 or PSVR eventually.

    There's also the fact that Valve may announce a standalone headset at some point soon. The Quest 3S would be rather attractive, but it's much less of an upgrade to the Quest 2 than the full fat Quest 3, although the AR has great potential.

    If Valve's ends up either taking too long or being not competitive and a bunch more VR and AR killer apps release for the Quest 3 (the latter being almost non existent), then it'll be hard to resist.

    The problem is if anything, this industry is in decline, so not full of hope.