While mobile chips are becoming faster and more powerful, wearables have now upped the ante.
The mobile chips in high end smartphones and tablets are growing faster and ever more powerful, but those devices aren’t astounding consumers who were buying them as fast as they could hit the shelves, so chipmakers may start looking toward wearable technology for their next area of explosive growth.
Wearables could actually provide chipmakers with the challenge that they need for the next few years.
The growth curve could be quite the steep one as long as those companies can provide what is needed in order to make consumers love wearable technology as much as they have come to love their smartphones and tablets. According to principal analyst, Linley Gwennap, from The Linley Group, it is too early to say whether or not chipmakers will actually grab hold of this opportunity, or even if wearables will turn out to be the next big tech trend, as many of the industry giants are hoping.
Currently, the wearable technology remains a market that is moving less than 10 million units per year.
Surveys are currently suggesting that while consumers have initially been attracted to wearables such as fitness trackers, all too many of them are finding themselves forgotten and buried under a pile of other devices that were enjoyed for their novelty but were then forgotten once that had worn off. Furthermore, the best devices – such as some of the smrtwatches that have been launched – are prohibitively expensive for the majority of consumers and end up collecting dust on the shelves.
Gwennap explained that “We’re talking about [US]$200 or $300 for a smartwatch today. That’s kind of a two-spouse decision.” He added that if the doors are to open for the majority of consumers to participate, then wearable devices under the $100 price barrier will need to start becoming available.
He explained that he feels that one of the best ways to move these devices will be to bundle them with smartphones, for example, the case of Samsung Galaxy Gear being sold along with the smartphones as a bundle, so that as little as $50 can be charged for the smartwatch.
Cheaper wearable technology will be dependent on more powerful and yet less expensive chips. Should this be achieved, it could be an area that will be highly lucrative in the not too distant future.
Social network voyeurism is nothing new. It is quite common for people to browse the social feeds of their friends to see what they are doing on a daily basis. Indeed, this is one of the primary reason social networks are so popular. eBay claims that this voyeurism is what makes the Venmo application so popular among young consumers as it reinforces the application’s network effect.