The question for the smart watch market is often - how big will it grow and will its adoption rival that of the smartphone? Given that the watch appeared long before the phone, will the smart watch reclaim its days of glory? These questions abound in a market where new entrants such as Apple and Samsung make their grand entries with smart watches that make headlines while traditional watch makers look on, rethinking their value proposition and most probably contemplating joining the booming market, a move seen among the likes of TAG Heuer and TIMEX.
In a recent report Smart Watches: Market Dynamics, Vendor Strategies & Scenario Forecasts 2014-2019 by Juniper research, a provider of research and analytics services, the number of smartwatches which will be in use worldwide by 2019 will surpass 100 million units and in the next 18 months, a host of premium brands are expected to debut their products in this market. The smartwatch which forms the second wave in the wearables market, follows on the trail of its predecessor, the smartband. Smartband is the 'smart' version of wrist-worn bands that became popular for their adoption in health and fitness monitoring. The difference between smart bands and basic bands it that the former is capable of running third party applications while the latter is not. The smartbands and smartwatches together make up the smart wearable segment which is poised to grow to a market size of USD53 billion, based on an earlier research from Juniper Research. In another report from Canalys, the wearable band market recorded a whopping 684% growth in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period last year. Consumers are already getting used to wearing gadgets around their wrists, and with smart watches featuring tens of other functionalities including cameras and social media access, the demand for smartwatches is expected to take off and grow rapidly in the next 1 to 2 years.
Juniper Research said in its statement that differentiation in the smart watch segment hinges on the vendor's ability to add new features or capabilities such as the GPS and Near Field Communications (NFC) connectivity that will enable the smart watch to provide new services such as enabling payments for purchases in physical stores or providing navigation assistance. The fact that newly introduced Apple Watch offers the NFC capability is a clear indication that to win in the smart watch segment, having data connection and mimicking phone features such as calling, texting, browsing and accessing email is just not enough.
