2. www.abiresearch.com
While the metaverse is a long-term vision, the buildup to this
future offers a runway of new opportunities for merging the
virtual and physical worlds. However, uncertainties and hurdles
make forecasting the rate of transformation challenging.
Therefore, in order to get a more accurate and complete picture
of this future, it is valuable to measure the broader opportunities
within the Media & Entertainment and enterprise markets as a
potential Total Addressable Market (TAM). When viewed
collectively, these opportunities will serve as building blocks
for the metaverse, forming the foundation of a lucrative and
growing market.
These building blocks include:
Virtual Spaces 3
Video Streaming 4
Video Gaming 5
Cloud Gaming 6
Cloud Content 7
Digital Advertising 8
Collaboration 9
The Building Blocks
of the Metaverse
2
3. www.abiresearch.com
Virtual Spaces
Between 2021 and 2030, the number of active users in
virtual spaces will climb from 118.3 million to 1,048.8
million—a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27.4%.
This growth in user activity will translate directly to revenue,
with virtual spaces revenue increasing from US$4.2 billion in
2021 to US$44.8 billion in 2030. This figure does not even
include the entire transaction volume for related Non-
Fungible Tokens (NFTs) or dedicated Augmented Reality
(AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) revenue, which would add hundreds
of billions of dollars in additional revenue opportunity.
3
(Source: ABI Research)
0
10
20
30
40
50
Metaverse Virtual Spaces Revenue
2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
Revenue
(US$
Billions)
4. www.abiresearch.com
The rise in Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) and Connected Television
(CTV) viewing not only solidified the transition from traditional
broadcast and pay TV to streaming media, but it also further
decentralized the availability of content and services, giving
consumers more control—a trend that started with mobile
video and devices during the 4G era. Affording consumers with
more choice and control is also a mantra often cited by both
metaverse and Web3 supporters. Expanded choice and control
also works to continue growing the viewer base by reaching (and
appealing to) wider audiences, while other developments like
digital identity management will help the video ecosystems and
value chain better support the buildup to the metaverse. The
arrival of mainstream-level smart glasses will also lead to
transformative changes within the video industry, due to the
potential for a truly pervasive screen; this impact is expected to
start in the latter portion of the forecast window.
Video Streaming
4
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
Viewers
(Billions)
North America Western Europe Eastern Europe
Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa
(Source: ABI Research)
Streaming Video Viewers by Region
5. www.abiresearch.com
Gaming, like video streaming, continues to reach wider audiences
and the high degree of overlap between the user bases further
strengthens the value of a user’s digital identity that
encompasses their entire digital footprint. Gamers have already
embraced a digital-first market and already see value in (and pay
for) digital assets and goods, although wider acceptance of NFTs
remains elusive. The trends within the gaming industry have also
led to more live service games and platforms, which serves as a
solid foundation for future persistent worlds in the metaverse.
These virtual spaces are also creating connections to other
segments within the M&E market, such as live virtual
concerts/events and group video viewing sessions.
As evidenced by recent acquisitions made by large companies like
Microsoft (Activision Blizzard) and Sony (Bungie), the industry is
gearing up to better take advantage of these live service games
and virtual worlds. Meta, too, despite the attention given to its
Oculus and Horizon properties is taking a multifaceted approach
to the metaverse through video, gaming, and social media.
Video Gaming
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
North America Western Europe Eastern Europe
Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa
Video Game Players by Region
(Source: ABI Research)
Players
(Billions)
6. www.abiresearch.com
The cloud gaming segment (a subset of the total gaming market)
continues to gain momentum, driven in particular by NVIDIA,
Microsoft, and China as a total market. Changes to Sony’s
subscription and cloud gaming services will provide a similar
boost to Microsoft’s Game Pass subscriptions, while other key
players like Amazon, Meta, Google, Ubitus, and Tencent continue
to expand the presence of cloud gaming. The gradual migration to
cloud services speaks to key metaverse elements, including:
Increased accessibility to content and services. Limiting the
price of entry by moving the compute from the client device to
the cloud reduces barriers to entry and opens the market to a
wider breadth of consumers outside the core gaming base.
Heightened opportunities aim to push content and services
into public spaces by making gaming increasingly portable. This
creates more opportunities for immersive experience like AR
and drives key use cases for technologies like 5G/6G and edge
computing—all of which will play key roles in developing the
metaverse.
Cloud Gaming
6
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
Players
(Millions)
North America Western Europe Eastern Europe
Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa
Cloud Gaming Players by Region
(Source: ABI Research)
7. www.abiresearch.com
Revenue growth across these four digital M&E markets is expected
to approach US$2 trillion by 2030, and while economic pressures
like high inflation, political instability, and recession could blunt
some of this growth, the trajectory forward remains strong in the
long term. The bulk of this revenue is not allocated directly to the
metaverse space at this time, but it can serve as a TAM and
potential source where additional revenue could come from if
adoption of virtual spaces and business models (such as Web3
elements like blockchain) are adopted at rates higher than
currently projected.
Critical issues and prevailing reluctance from the broader
consumer base for blockchain and crypto, key elements of Web3,
limit near-term expectations for some elements of the nascent
metaverse consumer marketplace, such as virtual real estate/land
and NFTs. Activities within the gaming market, however, will keep
momentum moving forward within the consumer space until
other elements, such as advertising and social, play a larger role.
Cloud Content
7
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
Revenue
(US$
Trillions)
Online Video Social Networking Search Revenue Digital Gaming
(Source: ABI Research)
Cloud Content & Services Revenue
8. www.abiresearch.com
Digital advertising is an integral business model for the previously
shown cloud content and service segments, but it is also
undergoing market transitions that will play integral roles in the
buildup to the metaverse and broader M&E landscape. Privacy
concerns and regulations are driving changes to advertising
tracking and attribution—these changes will push further into
areas like self-sovereign identity and, more broadly, bring the
spotlight to digital identity.
These market pressures will create new opportunities for
companies to serve as aggregation points for data exchanges and
centers of trust. Early examples here include digital wallets and
subscription aggregation services, such as SK Telecom’s T
Universe. The metaverse, if it merges the physical world with
virtual spaces and meets lofty projections, will need to build upon
the work being done on digital identities and data/content
management.
Digital Advertising
8
-
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
Revenue
(US$
Trillions)
North America Western Europe Eastern Europe
Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa
(Source: ABI Research)
Digital Advertising Revenue by Region
9. www.abiresearch.com
Within the enterprise, the metaverse is radically changing the future of work by
ushering in a new era—and new capabilities—focused on collaboration,
simulation/modeling, and data (both real world and synthetic). On the collaboration
front, ABI Research forecasts that total collaboration revenue (collaboration and related
services revenue + dedicated video collaboration hardware revenue) will increase from
US$24 billion in 2020 to US$64 billion in 2030.
Interestingly, one of the fastest growing subsets of collaboration revenue will be
immersive collaboration and related cloud services revenue, which will account for
more than one-third of all revenue (US$22 billion) in 2030. This subset includes:
Immersive Collaboration: Refers to the platforms and services that cater to
collaboration within virtual or immersive environments (does not require a Virtual
Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted Display (HMD)). Examples
include Spatial, Glue, Arthur, MeetinVR, The Wild, etc.
Virtual HQs: Represents platforms and services that are designed to better replicate
the in-office experience for remote workers, bridging the gap between remote and
in-office staff. Examples include Virbela, Teamflow, Walkabout Workplace, etc.
Virtual Events: Refers to platforms and services that are used to either replace (or
stand-in for) an in-person event, such as a conference, and includes webinars,
immersive meeting spaces, and virtual conferences.
Collaboration
9
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
2022 2023 2024 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
2025
2021
(Source: ABI Research)
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
for Collaboration Revenue
Revenue
(US$
Billions)
Immersive Collaboration and Related Cloud Services Revenue
Total Collaboration Revenue
