Lower Prices Will Buoy Fitness Tracker Market Near Term as Smart Watch Ramps, Says Parks
Some 9 percent of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a smart watch in the next 12 months, and just over half will use their watches to track fitness activities, said Parks Associates. That won’t have a big impact on…
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the dedicated fitness tracker device market near term, but it will “become more material” down the road, a Parks spokeswoman emailed us. The researcher expects standalone connected fitness trackers to grow from roughly 22 million units worldwide in 2014 to 75 million units in 2019, factoring in the impact of the smart watch, she said. "Smart watches will not immediately cannibalize the market for digital fitness trackers because fitness trackers are generally cheaper and can be used as a companion device with smart watches," said Tejas Mehta, Parks analyst. In the long run, "the smart watch category will increasingly cut into fitness tracker sales as the fitness capabilities of smart watches grow," he said. Smart watch and wearable use will be part of the discussion at Parks’ Connected Health Summit Sept. 9-10 in San Diego. The Apple Watch “has added some urgency for traditional and luxury watch manufacturers to enter this market," said Harry Wang, director-Parks health and mobile product research. Smart watches and wearables are creating new avenues for connected health solutions to engage consumers, said Wang, and “early design and partnership decisions will have a significant impact on the success of these offerings.”