Quick Summary
One reason the Vision Pro is so expensive is because its micro-OLED displays cost a fortune.
A new report says Apple has already negotiated their price downwards, and more price drops are expected.
The Apple Vision Pro is very expensive: here in the UK it has a price tag of £3,499, a straight dollar-to-pound conversion of the US price of $3,499. That's over seven times the price of the Meta Quest 3, and one of the big reasons for that is that the Apple headset has very high quality, very high resolution, very expensive micro-OLED displays.
The 1.42-inch micro-OLEDs in the Vision Pro deliver a resolution of 3,660 x 3,200 pixels per eye, and that doesn't come cheap: according to research analysts Omdia, the screens are $300 (roughly £235) a pop so each pair accounts for over 20% of the price of the Vision Pro. But the same firm says that those screens are getting cheaper – and that'll help Apple with its plans to make the Vision Pro more affordable.
Apple's displays are already getting cheaper
According to Omdia, when Apple first made the Vision Pro it was paying around $350 per eye, $700 per pair. As Apple has increased production it's been able to negotiate the price downwards to around $300 per unit.
According to Omdia, Apple should be able to get those prices down further. It predicts a price of $250 per eye in 2025 and a further reduction to $210 in 2026.
The micro-OLEDs are expensive because they're exceptionally tricky to make, and at the moment Apple relies on its sole supplier, Sony. According to reports quoted by 9to5Mac, Sony can't really make more than a million panels per year, so Apple can't make more than half a million Vision Pros. However, Sony's production processes are expected to improve and more suppliers are expected to enter the market, and that should help push prices further downwards.
Will that make the current Vision Pro cheaper? That's very unlikely, and it probably won't affect the rumoured consumer Vision Pro that's expected to launch in late 2025: that's believed to have much cheaper LCD displays to get the overall cost below £2,000. But it is good news for the second generation Vision Pro, which is reportedly on pause until Apple can cut costs without also cutting corners.
