From Smart Phones to Tablets, NotePads and Phablets and now to Wearable Bands, the market for smart gadgets just keeps growing. Dubbed as the next big thing in the technology market, the Wearable Bands, both basic and smart versions, are small devices worn on the body, monitoring and providing data on a variety of attributes, especially on fitness, lifestyle and health.
Canalys, an independent analyst company covering technology sectors, in its recently published country level quarterly estimates, expects a total of 2.7 million wearable bands to be shipped worldwide in Q1 2014, with smart bands making up close to 500,000 units. Pebble Technology leads the market for the smart wearable bands, followed by Sony and Samsung, with shares of 35%, 29% and 23% respectively.
In terms of the total wearable bands market, which includes the basic band segment, Fitbit, a major supplier of wearable bands, with its Flex, Zip, One, Force and Aria Bands, maintained its leadership position with nearly 50% market share. Canalys said that Fitbit continued to ship most of the units in the basic band segment, while another supplier, Jawbone also experienced rapid increase in sales after the initial launch of the UP24 in Q4. Nike, another player in this segment, however, saw its market share in the basic band segment dropping 10%. Canalys expects Nike to extend its fitness software to Apple's upcoming smart band after the cancellation of its future FuelBand products. Nike will be focusing on making use of its fitness software and Nike+ community of over 30 million users to promote its thousands of apparel products, added Canalys.
According to Canalys, the market share of players in this segment flunctuates as new products enter the market. Android Wear for example, will be launching this summer with LG releasing its smartwatch. At the same time, Motorola, another giant in the connected device space is poised to re-enter the market after exiting it two years ago.
"The FuelBand has frankly been outmatched on sales. Its competitors’ speed, international reach, broader channel distribution, integration with other fitness communities, superior web sites and multi-platform support have proven to be major advantages.’
- Daniel Matte, Analyst, Canalys
“Pebble Technology launched the Pebble Steel and the Pebble appstore and grew at a healthy rate during Q1, managing to achieve smart band market leadership for the quarter with a 35% share of worldwide shipments, ahead of both Sony and Samsung.‘Canalys’ quarterly estimates showed that total smart band shipments fell short of half a million units. This is largely because Samsung’s shipments were down dramatically quarter on quarter as it had strong sell-in for Q4 and then cleared inventory in preparation for its Gear product refresh in early Q2. The company must make some big steps to improve sell-through and customer satisfaction with its new products.’
- Chris Jones, VP and Principal Analyst, Canalys
‘Some industry observers are wondering if the wearables market is a failure, but Canalys believes the current dynamics instead reflect the rapidly changing nature of wearable devices. More sophisticated sensor technology designed specifically for wearables will be arriving soon.’
- Joe Kempton, Research Analyst, Canalys
