The 14th ChinaJoy Expo kicked off on Thursday at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

Dozens of the country's virtual reality (VR) enterprises and startups have gathered through 28th to 31st, showcasing the latest products such as headsets and goggles while introducing gaming content to run on the platforms.

This year, the Hannover Milano Fairs Shanghai Ltd, one of the major organizers of the ChinaJoy exhibition, worked together with the China VR\AR Entertainment Industry Alliance (VREIA) to introduce a subsidiary session named "eSmart", focusing on smart gaming hardware and entertainment accessories in the VR/AR sector.

"Worldwide shipments of VR hardware will skyrocket in 2016, with total volumes reaching 9.6 million units," estimated the IDC.

"Led by key products from Samsung, Sony, HTC, and Oculus, the category should generate hardware revenues of approximately $2.3 billion in 2016."

Tom Mainelli, vice president for Devices & Displays at IDC, said, "In 2016, the first major VR tethered HMDs from Oculus, HTC, and Sony should drive combined shipments of over 2 million units."

IDC elaborated that there are three major device categories across the augmented and virtual reality markets, including screenless viewers that use the screens of specific smartphones to drive an AR/VR experience; tethered Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) that utilize an existing computer device such as a PC, game console, or even a smartphone to drive a head-worn display and standalone HMDs that integrate processing within the head-ware.

According to the latest research released by China Electronics Standardization Institute and Xinhua News Agency, an expanding community of companies, both large and small, are working to make VR part of people's daily lives.

It said the Chinese VR market was worth 1.54 billion yuan($236 million) in 2015, and is expected to rise to more than 5 billion yuan this year.