Source: Sutthichai Supapornpasupad/Moment/Getty images.
This is the first in a series of articles analyzing the results from S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research’s recent survey, which polled more than 4,000 online adults across the US, UK, Canada, China, France, Germany, India and Japan in May and June. The web-based survey sampled a range of adults across varying locations, incomes and ages, but respondents were heavily tilted toward millennials in urban settings.
The Take
Comparing survey results year over year portrays a warming market for the consumer metaverse: A relatively steady rate of respondents making transactions, a slightly more positive outlook on the presence of display ads, and significant amelioration of concerns around payments, security and privacy.
These factors set the stage for continued user and revenue growth for top metaverse-leaning operations, such as Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite, though it may be harder for smaller and emerging players to break through.
Details
The percentage of adults who reported using metaverse apps or experiences grew by 8 percentage points to nearly 56% in S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research’s survey compared to the survey fielded a year ago — an increase that underlines the growing role virtual spaces are playing in our day-to-day lives.
Our survey suggests new users are coalescing around the established venues in the metaverse: A significantly higher percentage of respondents reported using Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, VR Chat and Meta Horizon Worlds in 2025 compared to 2024.
There was not as much movement outside the top five experiences as The Sandbox, Second Life and Rec Room were steady year over year. Habbo and HTC Viverse both saw slight upticks.
Minecraft has become a cultural institution, positioning itself as a creative outlet, educational tool, all-purpose hangout spot and, of course, a decent place to embark on a big adventure. And in 2025, Minecraft made the leap into theaters with The Minecraft Movie, which was a big box office hit and raised, or at least renewed, the profile of the brand.
Meanwhile, Roblox and Fortnite are engaged in an arms race to entice content creators to produce new spaces and play modes that will, in turn, attract and retain users. Roblox’s revenue performance is a testament to the company’s strength in this area, and our survey results suggest it may be slightly outpacing Fortnite in terms of growing its user base.
As our survey indicates, smaller operations are having a difficult time gaining traction against these established metaverse hubs.
When we asked about the hardware users would most prefer to access the metaverse, AR/VR headsets became the top pick in 2025, with 25% of respondents. Smartphones and PCs/laptops were not far behind.
We have seen headset sales slow with growing prices in the era of mixed reality, but we expect vendors will recalibrate over the next five years and reestablish at least some momentum for new shipments. Our survey suggests there is still a good measure of consumer interest in the platform.
Smartphones were the top pick in 2024 but appeared to lose some ground in 2025 as we added smart glasses and holographic displays to the pick list.
As of this writing, neither smart glasses nor holographic displays play much of a role in the lives of average consumers, but our survey suggests virtual spaces could be a key driver for those technologies. Kagan expects smart glasses to become the next big story in wearables, with shipments forecast to grow at a 50.5% compound annual growth rate over the next five years.
The number of respondents who reported having ever made a purchase in a virtual experience fell slightly from 54% in the year-ago survey to 52% in the most recent survey. We believe that more than half of users engaging in transactions is still good news for metaverse stakeholders, but the lack of momentum could be disquieting.
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