Merging the physical and virtual world in Catalonia

The 153 companies dedicated to immersive technologies in Catalonia have a turnover of 136.6 million euros and employ 900 people. In Europe, the sector is expected to reach an annual growth of 36% and a market value of 66,000 million euros by 2026.

Metaverse, holograms, virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality are some of the immersive technologies. The digital transformation has merged the physical and virtual worlds, transforming concepts that not long ago were considered science fiction into a palpable reality that is already part of many people’s daily lives.

All these technologies are experiencing exponential growth and promise to change how we perceive the world and interact with information. Sectors such as education, entertainment, medicine, design, industry and tourism will be transformed with new opportunities for creation and innovation.

This is an industry that globally has an annual growth of 38% thanks to increased investment in immersive technologies, the adoption of these technologies in the health sector, in education and the emergence of the metaverse and web 3.0. Catalonia is already part of this technological ecosystem, and a study by ACCIÓ details, for the first time, the situation of the Catalan immersive technologies sector.

Startups and companies less than 10 years old

According to the report prepared by the Agency for Business Competitiveness, the 153 Catalan companies specialising in immersive technologies have an aggregate turnover of 136.6 million euros, employing nearly 900 people. The study confirms that this is a growing sector since 58.2% of the total number of companies are less than 10 years old and a third (32.7%) are start-ups. In addition, 19% are exporters.

Specifically, 66% of the companies are dedicated to virtual reality, while 48.4% specialise in augmented reality, followed by 16.3% that focus on the metaverse. By sector, 39.2% of these companies work in the field of entertainment, 17% in industry 4.0, 11.8% in training and 10.5% in health.

In this context, the study points out that the Catalan territory is endowed with an ecosystem of support that complements the business fabric of immersive technologies: technology centres and research institutes, universities and training centres, associations and equipment, clusters, public administration, as well as world-renowned trade fairs and conferences such as the MWC, the ISE, the IoT Solutions World Congress or the Advanced Factories.

ACCIÓ also highlights that at the European level, annual growth of 36% is forecast and that the sector will reach 66 billion euros in 2026. Likewise, on a global scale, the study anticipates immersive technologies will consolidate their annual growth of 38% and have an aggregate market value of 605 billion euros in 2028.

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