Pandemic Consumer Fitness Spending Spurring Wearables Growth: Futuresource
Wearables, including adult smartwatches, sports watches and hearables, have grown in an overall 2020 CE market that has “trended towards decline,” reported Futuresource Thursday. “Consumers have been exploring alternatives to the gym, buying home workout equipment, and paying attention to…
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a wide range of digital health products,” said analyst Stephen Mears, highlighting hearables with activity and health tracking functionality and wrist wearables with advanced biometric sensors. Hearables will account for more than 55% of global wearables market shipments this year in the category comprising wearable smartphones, extended reality head-mounted displays, fitness devices and connected watches. Mears cited opportunities in hearing correction wearables, with more than 400 million people worldwide having hearing loss, half under 50; of those, fewer than 10% own a hearing aid. Wrist wearables have potential in monitoring high blood pressure, respiratory disease, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, a “lucrative” opportunity for vendors, if managed correctly, he said. Though the ear is better for tracking health indicators such as heart rate and blood pressure, wrist wearables are marketed as fitness and health products and have screens allowing consumers to engage with data in real time, he noted. The future for wearables involves an “integrated ecosystem of wrist and ear worn wearables, with biometric tracking happening in the ear, while activity tracking and data visualisation/processing will happen on the wrist,” said Mears: “This ecosystem of products will prove to be more compelling for consumers than either device could on its own.” Apple's and Fitbit’s efforts to leverage their smartwatch platforms through service subscriptions point "to where the category as a whole is heading in the next few years."