Google has shipped 10 million Cardboard VR sets to date, the company’s Vice President of VR Amit Singh revealed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) earlier today. While speaking on the main stage of the Barcelona, Spain-based trade show, Singh also said how Cardboard apps have so far been downloaded 160 million times from the Google Play Store, adding that 30 Cardboard apps managed to reach one million downloads each. The already impressive milestone is even more notable in light of the fact that Google shipped five million Cardboard VR sets in total until last July, meaning the company managed to double its global shipments in a span of seven months. The fact that the company’s affordable virtual reality solution is seemingly still gaining momentum after 27 months on the market is evidence of Google’s commitment to promoting this emerging technology across numerous pricing tiers.
Singh’s MWC 2017 speech also included an update on Google Daydream, the company’s VR platform that debuted with the Daydream View headset in late 2016. To date, more than half of all content consumers watch using Daydream originates from YouTube, Google’s executive revealed. Due to that state of affairs, the Mountain View-based tech giant is currently in the process of producing more premium VR content for YouTube, Singh said, clarifying that he’s talking about content produced by professionals that won’t necessarily be paid. The company’s new focus on professionally produced content will initially manifest itself in the form of numerous VR series that will launch on YouTube later this year. Google’s NFL VR series was already viewed over a million times in the United States and more similar content is expected to debut on YouTube in the near future, Singh said, revealing how Google partnered with SkyVR in Europe to do a better job of realizing those ambitions.
SkyVR is now scheduled to release movies and original series on Daydream and provide Google’s VR platform with a number of other programs. A portion of new SkyVR-produced experiences will also star a number of celebrities, Singh revealed while mentioning David Beckham by name. Google’s VR ecosystem is expected to grow by a significant margin over the course of this year as more Daydream-enabled smartphones and headsets hit the market.