Heart Rate Monitoring Continues to Drive Activity Tracker Sales, Says NPD
Built-in heart rate monitors are driving growth in the activity tracker category, said a Thursday NPD report. The overall tracker market was up by 11 million devices in Q2 vs. the year-ago quarter, and the number of owned activity trackers…
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with heart rate monitors grew to 44 percent of the category compared with 12 percent in Q2 2015, it said. Heart rate monitors are now the “must-have feature” in high-end and mid-tier activity trackers, and on-device GPS is also beginning to grow. But activity tracker owners can access GPS by tethering their devices to their smartphone, NPD said, lessening the need for the technology on the tracker itself. That could change as a result of the recently launched Apple Watch Series 2, which will likely spur activity among tracker and smartwatch vendors to include the feature in more models over the next year, NPD said.