Tag: wearable technology industry

Fitbit will maintain its wearable technology industry dominance

| March 2, 2016

According to a recent report from BI Intelligence, the company’s wearables will stay at the top of the market.

The wearable technology market has been growing in a direction that had not been predicted by many industry analysts, especially when it comes to the impact that smartwatches were supposed to have, following the release of the Apple Watch.

Fitness trackers have remained well in the lead of wearables and it is Fitbit that has been keeping ahead of the pack.

Fitbit recently reported its Q4 2015 revenue as being $712 million. That figure was hugely greater than the average prediction from analysts, which had been $648 million. Throughout all of last year, the company brought in a massive revenue of $1.86 billion. To do this, it sold 8.2 million of its wearable technology devices in the last quarter, bringing its total number of sales for 2015 to 21.4 million. According to analysts, that figure will only continue to rise, this year as the company adds more products to its offerings, such as its very own smartwatch, the Fitbit Blaze, as well as a more fashion-focused fitness band, the Fitbit Alta.

Currently, Fitbit’s wearable technology products are most popular in the United States, where it generated 75 percent of its revenue.

Fitbit - Wearable TechnologyThat said, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, combined, made up 12 percent of the company’s revenue. Still, that represents a 191 percent year over year growth in Q4 for those regions, revealing a tremendous rise in popularity within those parts of the world. This indicates that 2016 may be seeing action in far greater markets than the United States. According to BI Intelligence research analyst, Jonathan Camhi, the company’s wearables are seeing considerable traction being gained outside the U.S.

Last year, the company’s focus was aimed at establishing and growing its Fitbit Wellness program. This allowed it to boost its healthcare market customer base by 1,000 in 2015. This shows the growing appeal of the wearable devices within that industry, as well.

Now, BI Intelligence has predicted that the most promising area for growth for these wearable technology devices will be within the health sector. As a number of trends form both among customers and professionals in the healthcare industry, the interest in these gadgets is expected to rise considerably.

Wearable technology industry will be worth $34 billion in 4 years

| February 24, 2016

By the year 2020, CCS Insight is predicting that there will be 411 million wearables owned by consumers.

Analyst firm, CCS Insight has now give its wearable technology outlook an update, now predicting that by 2020, there will be 411 million smart wearable technology devices owned by consumers, and that the industry will be worth a massive $34 billion.

The firm also stated that, by the close of 2016, the wearables industry will have broken the $14 billion mark.

The predictions that it has made is that wrist-based wearable technology devices, such as many fitness trackers and smartwatches, will continue to top the list among the most popular gadgets in the category. The forecast the analyst has issued has stated that wrist-worn wearables will make up half of all sales in this category in the upcoming 12 months. Moreover, smartwatches are expected to make up 50 percent of the predicted 60 million device shipments that it expects to occur during that time.

This wearable technology update has changed since mid-2015, showing a 41 percent market share for the Apple Watch.

Wearable Technology Industry worth billionsAt that time, it said that there would be 20 million Apple Watches sold in 2015. That said, its data has now shown that during that time, the figure was strikingly lower; at only 9 million device sales.

Previously in February, another firm, Canalys, had indicated that its estimates were that in 2015, there were 12 million Apple Watches shipped. If that firm’s claims are true, that would give the company a much larger share, at about two thirds of the smartwatch marketplace. On the other hand, a week after that, Gartner released its figures and said that in 2015, the total number of smartwatch sales from all brands was 30 million. These varying numbers and measures make it evident that knowing what has already happened may be just as difficult to measure as predicting what will be occurring a few years down the road.

According to CCS Insight chief of research, Ben Wood, when discussing the wearable technology forecast report, “Given the rising consumer apathy toward smartphones, it is little wonder so many companies are chasing the rapidly growing opportunity presented by wearables. We’re particularly excited about the potential for augmented and virtual reality devices, and we predict 2016 will be a pivotal year.”