Analyst believes 2 million VR headsets may ship this year

Canalys anticipates the VR headset market may see sales grow from 2 million units this year to 20 million units in 2020. As usual, we recommend taking these long-term projections with a grain of salt as they're more often than not quite inaccurate.

The bulk of 2016 shipments are basic VR headsets that rely on other devices, generally being tethered by cable to a desktop PC. Shipments of smart VR headsets, which can function independently, will reach over 100,000 units. These estimates only include VR headsets with integrated displays, excluding simple viewers, such as Samsung's Gear VR and Google's Daydream View, which are also shipping in the millions.

The analyst expects most of this year's VR headset sales will consist of the Sony PlayStation VR, that headset is expected to see total sales of 800,000 units in less than three months on the market.

HTC is expected to be the runner-up with 500,000 units sold of the Vive headset, while Oculus follows with around 400,000 shipments of its Rift.