Smart wearable device revenues are predicted to surpass USD53 billion by 2019 on the back of the increasing demand for smartwatches and the already steady rise in the use of smart bands for fitness and health monitoring. The launch of new smartwatches by giants Apple and Samsung is expected to provide a major push for this segment given that users can now access features they are accustomed to on their smartwatches spurring them to switch from conventional watches to these newer gadgets.
Although smartbands that offered fitness and health monitoring were the major revenue leaders for the smart wearables segment, the arrival of newer and connected smartwatches will see the latter slowly taking a bigger share in this market. Juniper Research, a provider of consultancy, research and analysis for hi-tech communications sector which provided the above figures in its Smart Wearables: Fitness, Glasses, Watches, Multimedia, Clothing, Jewellery, Healthcare & Enterprise 2014-2019 report said in a statement that in the next two years, the shipments of smart wearable devices will grow by four times, reaching 116 million from 27 million this year, although the number of smartphones connected to these wearables will still be less than 5% by that time.
Juniper Research also highlighted the trend in the industry whereby major players in the market are moving towards offering their operating systems(OS) and databanks to smaller hardware-only companies, anticipating most future entrants in the market to design their products around the specifications of similar operating systems. This, Juniper Research says, will create a homogenised product offering unless there are new entrants that leverage on alternative OS or their own proprietary OS to offer a truly differentiated smart wearable.
