Chapter 3: Augmented Reality and Its Applications in the Virtual World: A Bibliometric Analysis Framework of Two Decades (2003–2023)

Purpose: The primary objective of this study is to examine research publications which help to understand the augmented reality (AR) and the applicability in business in current and future scenarios.

Design/methodology/approach: The study considers publications from the last two decades from 2003 to 2023. The Scopus database will be used as the data source for extracting research papers, and VOSviewer is used to analyse the data.

Findings: The findings showcase that the AR applications increased significantly. AR technologies were employed in the construction sector, healthcare sector, etc. in the 20th century. But it has increased widely in the education sector during COVID-19 crises as well as in hospitality and games in the 21st century. With the help of VOSviewer, it is found that the highest number of instances was 11 in the United States, followed by 8 in India, 7 in China, and 7 in South Korea, and Chen, Liu, and Qio were the renowned authors who had the maximum contribution in this respect. With respect to bibliographic coupling, the United States with 1,241 citations, 820 overall link strength, and 11 publications followed by India and three clusters – the United States, Taiwan, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Malaysia make up the largest cluster. The second cluster includes the United Kingdom, India, and the United States. In the third cluster are Taiwan, China, and the United States.