Google Says Over 10 Million Cardboard VR Headsets Shipped Since 2014 Launch

Google has announced that the company has managed to ship more than 10 million Cardboard VR headsets since their launch in 2014. The search giant has also announced Sky VR app for its Daydream VR platform and three new apps meant for company's Tango augmented-reality platform.

Talking first about the VR headset shipments, despite the impressive number overall, it is hard to gauge the number of people who actually purchased the product as there have been several promotional offers that provided participants with free Google Cardboard VR headsets over the last three years.

Apart from the shipment numbers, the company also shared there have been 160 million downloads of Cardboard apps on Google Play. Further, 30 of these apps have been downloaded more than 1 million times. The company also described how the new Daydream platform is encouraging VR use. "We've built Daydream with lessons learned from Cardboard. It's more comfortable, interactive, and immersive; as a result, people are spending more time using it-about 40 minutes per week," the search giant said in its blog post.

Google says that video-watching is top category for entertainment on Daydream and YouTube is the top Daydream app in terms of number of users and the time spent on the app.

The newly-announced Sky app offers videos from Sky's partners including "Star Wars: Red Carpet," "Anthony Joshua-Becoming World Champion," and clips from Disney's "The Jungle Book," the company said.

Coming finally to the apps announced for Tango AR platform - The Sims app allows users to walk around Sims house using their smartphone. The Chelsea Kicker lets users click pictures with Chelsea football players and test tricks with them as well. The WSJ AR app for Tango allows users to visualise stock trends.

It will be interesting to see how the company continues to support its mixed-reality platforms going forward and if it does come up with another version of its headset that probably packs advanced hardware compared to the original.