Following its Q3 earnings call, PTC announced on July 30th that semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries (GF), will begin using its Vuforia augmented reality solutions platform. GF will implement the newly released Vuforia Expert Capture (providing location-specific augmented reality guidance) software for use with AR HMDs such as RealWear’s HMT-1. GF will also be using PTC’s Vuforia Studio (its drag-and-drop authoring environment), to digitize standard operating procedures (SOPs).  The semiconductor company expects Vuforia Expert Capture and Vuforia Studio to improve productivity and efficiency, as well as serve as a training tool for workers, ultimately lowering costs.  

Since the first rollout, GF has evaluated the company’s ROI on the addition of Vuforia. According to DP Prakash of GlobalFoundries, “GlobalFoundries has seen a 50% reduction in training time, alongside decreased mistakes, and improvement in equipment availability”. Prakash’s explained that AR is beneficial in these areas:

• Documentation (creation of SOPs)
• Training & recruiting
• Operations (remote expert assistance) 
• Analytics (predictive maintenance tools)  

According to PTC, “Industrial enterprises are the highest adopters of augmented reality, focusing efforts on improving worker performance and solving the skilled labor shortage they are experiencing”. Greenlight Insights expects other industry verticals to gradually catch up in this respect, as enterprises compare the cost of AR software and hardware to the cost of its operational inefficiencies. 

Our Analysis

With the announcement of PTC’s deal with GF, PTC is likely to see an increase in its license and subscription bookings over the next quarter. GF had piloted the Vuforia platform prior to scaling, indicating that this is likely a significant deal for PTC. GF also commented that they are looking forward to capitalizing on other Vuforia-powered transformation initiatives in the future. After missing the revenue consensus estimate, this announcement is intended to reassure PTC stakeholders, in addition to enterprises with an interest in implementing AR in their own operations. As augmented reality continues see adoption within enterprises, PTC should expect further business opportunities for its integrated AR software stack.