Samsung brings Virtual Reality to Kenya with Gear VR 2016

Situated along Kenyatta Avenue, the Samsung Delite store will incorporate a convergence center with focus on Samsung Business Solutions. Samsung also used the store’s opening to officially introduce the Gear VR 2016 in the country.

Virtual reality (VR) is now going mainstream as device manufacturers launch their VR devices over past year. The Samsung Gear VR not only offers a new way of viewing the virtual reality world but also more affordable.

“At Samsung, we focus on transforming the human experience through technology. The latest innovations do not have to be expensive as the market has dictated over the years. With the Gear VR, we are making virtual reality more accessible,” said Mr. Kariithi Head of Internet and Mobile at Samsung Electronics East Africa Ltd.

The Samsung Galaxy Gear VR was actually among the first to usher in the trend about two years ago and it is only now that people have been able to get their hands on the device. However, there are new iterations of this technology in device adds on the like the Ant VR from Lenovo, which lets users have a large screen experience on their phones using this very affordable head unit.

Gear VR works by using a Samsung Galaxy phone to power it, but it does not have a built in screen like the Oculus Rift. Instead, it features a touchpad that enables interactions with the docked phone, and was originally released in November 2015.

At launch, it was compatible with the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and S6 Edge+. Samsung’s website still lists only these four phones as compatible, but the Gear VR will be compatible with the Galaxy S7 and larger S7 Edge.

At Mobile World Congress Samsung announced that they were giving away a Gear VR headset with every preorder of its new water-resistant flagships. This will expose many more to consumers to VR.

According to data firm SuperData Research, Mobile VR is on track to reach $861 million in revenues this year. That is a big increase for a market that is only just getting off the ground thanks to Samsung’s Gear VR (which it makes with Oculus VR) and Google’s Cardboard casings, which enable smartphones to power virtual reality games and apps.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs is also predicting VR will grow to $110 billion by 2020. Samsung sees an opportunity to control how you download VR software. The Google Play store already has dozens of VR apps, and keeping that library growing is one of the key ways that the companies could stand to profit.