[NEWS IN FOCUS] Price likely to be Samsung's edge over Apple in headset market

With Apple’s Vision Pro triggering a newfound interest in the nascent headset market, all eyes are now on Samsung Electronics and its newest XR headset gear set for release as early as the end of this year.

From left, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, Samsung Electronics President Roh Tae-moon and Google Senior Vice President Hiroshi Lockheimer announce their partnership at the Unpacked event in San Francisco in February. [YONHAP]

With Apple’s Vision Pro triggering a newfound interest in the nascent headset market, all eyes are now on Samsung Electronics and its newest XR headset gear set for release as early as the end of this year.

XR refers to "extended reality" that covers both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality.

While Apple's Vision Pro wowed audiences when it debuted early this month, it left some tilting their heads when its hefty price tag — $3,499 — was revealed.

Apple's Vision Pro headset [APPLE]

Price is where Samsung Electronics can have a competitive edge over Apple, experts say.

“Samsung Electronics is likely to position its upcoming XR headset's pricing somewhere between the Vision Pro and the Meta Quest,” Lee Kyu-ha, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities said.

“Hardware will be premium like Apple, but its price will have to inch down to be accessible to the general public.”

Meta Quest is a VR headset developed by Meta, one of the main players in the headset industry. The Meta Quest 3, slated to launch this fall, is expected to be sold for $499.99.

Meta Quest blocks the outside world to let users immerse themselves in virtual reality. Meta emphasizes a function that allows users to socialize in the virtual world and even play games together.

Apple's Vision Pro, on the other hand, veers away from the social aspect that Quest provides but emphasizes how one can enjoy the gear by oneself with content like Disney.

"Samsung's headset will have to play the biggest role in pulling down the prices of the headsets in the market when it launches," said Lee Jong-wook, an analyst at Samsung Securities.

Some functions and designs will inevitably be compromised to pull down the price, but display quality is something that Samsung Electronics should not let go of.

“Clarity of the display is one of the core aspects that users are looking for in the headsets,” Lee Jong-wook said. “It should not be compromised.”

Apple’s Vision Pro is packed with Sony’s OLED on silicon, or OLEDoS, panels that tout a resolution of approximately 3,500 pixels per inch.

Samsung’s newest XR gear is expected to use Samsung Display’s OLEDoS panel. The resolution is confidential, according to the panel maker.

"Knowing that display takes up nearly half of the manufacturing cost of the gear, if Samsung doesn't want to jeopardize the display quality, it should be priced somewhere around $2,000," Lee Kyu-ha said.

This is not the first time for Samsung Electronics to enter the headset market. In 2015, the tech giant launched Gear VR in partnership with Oculus, in which a user mounts a smartphone on the front of the headset to use it as a display. It failed to gain popularity and the product was suspended.

The tech giant's reentry into the market for the first time in nearly a decade was confirmed in February when Samsung Electronics' mobile communication business head Roh Tae-moon announced its partnership with Google and Qualcomm to come up with "extended reality" products.

Samsung Electronics will likely take charge of the hardware while Google and Qualcomm will be in charge of the operating system and chip.

There are speculations that Samsung Electronics will launch a glass-type of XR gear rather than a ski goggle-esque version like Apple's Vision Pro as the Korean company filed a trademark application for "Galaxy Glasses" with the Korean Intellectual Property Office in February.

"I don't think Samsung's XR headset will take the form of glasses because it is what Google has failed to achieve once in the past with Google Glasses," said Woo Woon-taek, a professor at KAIST Graduate School of Culture Technology.

“It should take a similar form to the Vision Pro, but the product would have to be lighter."

When Samsung Electronics will unveil the new gear is not yet known, but it is highly unlikely for it to debut at the upcoming Unpacked event scheduled for July in Seoul, according to a source from the tech company with knowledge of the matter.

Meta's upcoming Quest 3 headset [META]

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]