Now I have comprehensive information to write the article. Let me create a thorough, journalistic piece on the M5 Vision Pro's minimal sales impact.
Apple's latest attempt to breathe life into its struggling Vision Pro headset appears to have fallen flat.
Despite launching an upgraded M5 model in October 2025 with improved performance and battery life, the spatial computing device shipped an estimated 45,000 units during the crucial fourth-quarter holiday period—a figure that underscores the product's inability to gain meaningful traction in the consumer market.
The modest sales projection from International Data Corporation stands in stark contrast to the millions of iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks Apple routinely sells each quarter. More troubling still, the Q4 2025 estimate represents a precipitous decline from the 390,000 units shipped throughout 2024, suggesting the M5 refresh did little to reverse the headset's downward trajectory.
Manufacturing partner Luxshare Precision ceased production of the device at the start of 2025, and Apple slashed digital advertising spending for the Vision Pro by more than 95% in key markets including the United States and United Kingdom.
Technical Upgrades Failed to Move the Needle
The M5 Vision Pro, announced October 15 and released October 22, maintained the same $3,499 price point as its M2 predecessor while delivering several notable technical improvements.
The new model features Apple's M5 chip with a 10-core CPU and GPU, renders 10% more pixels on the micro-OLED displays, and supports refresh rates up to 120Hz compared to the previous 100Hz maximum. Battery life increased by 30 minutes to 2.5 hours of general use, and the device ships with a redesigned Dual Knit Band aimed at addressing comfort complaints.
Apple emphasized the M5's 50% faster AI performance for system features like Persona creation and spatial photo rendering, alongside twice the speed for certain third-party applications. The chip's hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading capabilities promised richer lighting and reflections in games and 3D applications.
Early hands-on impressions suggested the M5 model finally delivered the performance Apple promised with the original release, with reviewers noting faster app loading, cooler operation, and improved clarity for Mac Virtual Display.
Yet these refinements, while appreciated by the small existing user base, failed to expand the market.
The Vision Pro remains essentially the same product: a premium mixed-reality headset with fundamental limitations that no processor upgrade could address.
A Market in Decline
The Vision Pro's struggles unfold against a backdrop of broader weakness in the virtual reality sector. Global VR headset shipments fell 14% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, according to Counterpoint Research, with the full-year 2025 market expected to decline by 42.8% once final figures are tallied.
IDC's Francisco Jeronimo told The Register that consumer appetite for bulky headgear has "cooled to a damp chill," adding bluntly that predictions of AR and VR replacing smartphones "didn't happen" and "will never happen".
Meta Quest devices continue to dominate the category, holding approximately 74-80% market share depending on the reporting period. Meta shipped 1.7 million Quest units in the first three quarters of 2025—down 16% year-over-year but still dwarfing Apple's output—with pricing starting around $349, roughly one-tenth the cost of Vision Pro.
The Quest 3 and more affordable Quest 3S have effectively become impulse purchases in the VR category, while the Vision Pro remains prohibitively expensive for all but the most committed enthusiasts and enterprise buyers.
Price, Comfort, and Content: The Trifecta of Barriers
Three interconnected obstacles have prevented the Vision Pro from achieving mass-market appeal. The $3,499 starting price—seven to eleven times more expensive than leading competitors—immediately excludes the vast majority of potential customers.
Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring noted that the cost, combined with the bulky form factor and limited native visionOS applications, explains why "the Vision Pro never sold broadly".
Weight and comfort remain persistent complaints. At 600-650 grams, the Vision Pro causes discomfort during extended wear, despite the improved Dual Knit Band.
Reviews consistently cite pressure points and the device's front-heavy design as detractors from the otherwise impressive technical experience. Battery life of just 2.5 hours, while improved from the M2 model, still limits practical use cases.
Perhaps most critically, the Vision Pro lacks a robust content ecosystem to justify its premium positioning. The visionOS App Store offers approximately 2,500-3,000 native applications—a respectable figure for a first-generation platform but insufficient to drive mass adoption. Major technology companies including Netflix, Google, and Meta have declined to develop flagship applications for the headset.
Independent developers, often working evenings and weekends while maintaining full-time employment, shoulder much of the app development burden. Polish programmer Adam Roszyk exemplifies this dynamic: his 17 Vision Pro applications generated approximately $4,000 over three months, hardly enough to support full-time development.
The slow growth of the app ecosystem creates a self-reinforcing problem. Limited sales discourage developer investment, which in turn reduces the compelling reasons for consumers to purchase the device.
A survey by Wccftech found that 45% of developers remain uncertain about supporting the Vision Pro, while 35% have decided against development entirely. The platform's novelty presents technical challenges that extend development timelines, with unfamiliar software development tools less stable than those for Apple's mature product lines.
Enterprise Adoption Offers a Lifeline
While consumer sales disappoint, enterprise adoption has emerged as the Vision Pro's most promising market. The Wall Street Journal reported that business customers represent the headset's primary audience, with applications spanning retail visualization, industrial design, and professional training.
Apple CEO Tim Cook disclosed in May 2024 that half of Fortune 100 companies had purchased Vision Pro units, though the company has not provided specific volume figures.
Retail chain Lowe's deploys the headset to allow customers to virtually explore home remodeling designs, enabling the company to close projects in fewer meetings.
French engineering software firm Dassault Systèmes developed the 3DLive App for use across industries from molecular biology to electric vehicle design. Canadian aviation training company CAE employs Vision Pro for flight simulator instruction, reporting improved information retention among pilots.
The enterprise focus makes strategic sense. Corporate budgets can absorb the $3,499 price more readily than individual consumers, and professional use cases—design reviews, training simulations, remote collaboration—align well with the device's capabilities.
VisionOS 26, released in June 2025, added enterprise-specific features including team device sharing, Protected Content API for confidential materials, and the ability to save user settings to iPhone for easy transfer between shared devices.
Yet enterprise adoption alone cannot sustain a product line at the scale Apple typically operates. The company has built its business on high-volume consumer products with broad appeal.
Even robust enterprise sales of tens of thousands of units quarterly represent a rounding error compared to iPhone shipments.
Competitive Pressure Intensifies
Samsung launched the Galaxy XR headset on October 21, 2025—one day before the M5 Vision Pro's release—at a price of $1,799, positioning it squarely between Meta's budget offerings and Apple's premium device.
Built on Google's new Android XR platform and co-developed with Qualcomm Technologies, the Galaxy XR features 4K micro-OLED displays with 29 million total pixels compared to Vision Pro's 23 million, though at a lower 90Hz maximum refresh rate. Early hands-on impressions suggested the Galaxy XR delivers comparable visual quality and hand tracking while weighing less and costing substantially less than Apple's offering.
The Samsung device's October 21 unveiling appeared strategically timed to steal attention from Apple's M5 launch. Whether the Galaxy XR gains meaningful market share remains to be seen—Google's previous attempt at an Android-based VR platform, Daydream, collapsed in 2018 due to poor engagement.
However, the device's existence adds another competitor in an already crowded market where Apple's premium positioning looks increasingly untenable.
Meta, meanwhile, continues aggressively pricing its Quest lineup. The Quest 3S dropped to $250 at retail, establishing VR as an affordable impulse purchase. Meta also reported strong growth in its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, with sales more than tripling year-to-date in 2025 compared to the previous year.
The AR glasses market grew 50% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, presenting an alternative form factor that may prove more appealing for everyday use than bulky headsets.
Strategic Reassessment and Future Plans
Apple reportedly paused development of a second-generation Vision Pro to prioritize a more affordable model expected in late 2026. Bloomberg reported the lower-cost version would likely retail around $2,000, featuring an A-series iPhone chip rather than the M-series processor, lower-resolution displays, and construction from lighter, less expensive materials.
The device would eliminate the external EyeSight display—the lenticular screen showing the wearer's eyes—which never functioned particularly well and added significant cost.
Production targets for the budget model appear modest, with estimates suggesting a lifetime production run of four million units, half the original target for the first-generation Vision Pro.
Apple reportedly expects to sell double the volume of the cheaper model compared to the premium version, though that calculation assumes demand materializes at lower price points.
Reports also suggest Apple is shifting strategic focus toward AR smart glasses similar to Meta's Ray-Ban collaboration, viewing lightweight glasses as potentially more viable for mass-market adoption than full headsets.
Such a pivot would acknowledge the fundamental limitations of head-mounted displays for everyday use—weight, comfort, battery life, and social acceptability in public settings.
The Vision Pro's trajectory invites comparison to other ambitious Apple products that failed to achieve mainstream success. Unlike the iPod, iPhone, or Apple Watch—products that redefined their categories and created massive new revenue streams—the Vision Pro appears destined for a more modest role.
At best, it serves as an expensive platform for enterprise applications and early-adopter experimentation. At worst, it becomes an expensive proof of concept, remembered as a bold but ultimately flawed bet on a technology not yet ready for prime time.
Broader Implications
The Vision Pro's struggles carry implications beyond Apple's product portfolio. The company has historically succeeded by entering established markets with premium products that redefine user expectations. The iPod did not invent the MP3 player, but it made digital music accessible and desirable.
The iPhone did not invent the smartphone, but it created the modern touchscreen smartphone category. The Apple Watch did not invent wearable technology, but it established the smartwatch as a viable product category.
With Vision Pro, Apple attempted to create an entirely new computing paradigm rather than perfecting an existing one. The bet assumed consumers would embrace spatial computing for tasks currently performed on smartphones, tablets, and computers. That assumption has proven premature.
The technology works—reviews consistently praise the Vision Pro's visual quality and interface design—but the value proposition remains unclear for most users. Why strap a headset to one's face for tasks a laptop or phone accomplishes more conveniently?
The market's 42.8% decline in 2025 suggests the problem extends beyond Apple. VR as a category has failed to transition from gaming and entertainment niche to general-purpose computing platform despite years of investment and iteration from Meta, Sony, HTC, and others.
Enthusiast communities support the technology, but mainstream consumers remain unconvinced. The Vision Pro's premium positioning made it particularly vulnerable to this broader skepticism.
Financial analysts at Morgan Stanley noted that Apple's underperformance in 2025—returning approximately 8.5% compared to the S&P 500's 17%—stemmed partly from investor skepticism regarding Vision Pro sales and questions about the immediate monetization potential of Apple Intelligence features.
While the Vision Pro represents a tiny fraction of Apple's $416 billion annual revenue, its struggles signal potential limits to the company's ability to create entirely new product categories at scale.
The device's trajectory also highlights challenges in ecosystem development. Apple's traditional strength lies in tight integration between hardware, software, and services, creating network effects that lock users into the ecosystem.
Vision Pro possesses the technical foundation for such integration—seamless connectivity with iPhones, Macs, and iPads—but lacks the application layer that makes the ecosystem valuable. Without Netflix, without Google apps, without the thousands of experiences that define computing platforms, the Vision Pro offers impressive technology in search of practical application.
Developers face steep learning curves adapting to spatial computing paradigms, longer development cycles due to unfamiliar and sometimes unstable tools, and uncertain return on investment given the small user base.
The platform requires fundamentally different interface design compared to traditional 2D screens, demanding expertise many development teams lack. Until the installed base grows substantially, developers have little incentive to prioritize Vision Pro, perpetuating the content shortage that constrains growth.
Apple continues betting on spatial computing's long-term potential. The visionOS 26 update brought meaningful improvements to enterprise workflows, widget functionality, and spatial photo rendering. The company maintains partnerships with major brands and content providers, slowly building the ecosystem.
Whether these efforts eventually pay off depends on Apple's ability to deliver more affordable hardware, attract developers at scale, and articulate compelling use cases that justify wearing a headset.
The M5 Vision Pro represents incremental improvement applied to a product with structural challenges. Faster processing, better battery life, and improved comfort help at the margins but do not address fundamental questions about pricing, content, and market demand.
Until Apple solves those problems—likely through dramatically lower pricing and years of ecosystem development—the Vision Pro remains an expensive experiment rather than a viable product line.
