Just how big can the wearable tech market become? According to the latest analyst report, which tech journalists are now pawing over, 322.69 million wearable devices will be sold globally in 2017, an increase of 39 percent from 232.01 million units in 2015.
That’s the lowdown according to Gartner, who also claim that 30.32 million smartwatches were sold in 2015, a figure it says will grow to 66.71 million by 2017.
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However, as with all analyst forecasts and breakdowns, a firm pinch of salt is needed. There’s a fair amount of guesswork that goes into these reports and, if you compare different analysts’ takes on the state of the market – and throw in individual company sales figures as well – it’s easy to find holes in the numbers.
For example, the 30.32 million smartwatch sales estimated on the Gartner report doesn’t quite ring true if you refer to other sources. With Cupertino keeping schtum, officially, on Apple Watch sales, it’s almost impossible to arrive at an accurate figure.
For Apple Watch sales estimates for 2015, we’ve seen numbers ranging from 9 million to a whopping 30 million. Throw in a recent report from Juniper Research that the Apple Watch made up 52% of smartwatch shipments in 2015, and you’ve got a confusing result to say the least.
According to that report, published in January, Android Wear only comprised of 10% of all smartwatches sold in 2015; an incredibly low figure when you consider that Google’s smartwatch OS covers more than 15 different models from a multitude of manufacturers.
Again, this differs from what IDC is stating. Its latest smartwatch report claims that there were 21.3 million smartwatch shipments in 2015, with the split for Apple and Google being 61% and 15% respectively.
Within five years, the ratio of smartphone shipments compared to smartwatch ones will be down from 500:1 to 20:1; with an estimated 101 million smartwatch shipments taking place by 2020.
This is what IHS Technology was saying in mid-2015; pinning the hopes of the smartwatch market well at Apple and Google’s door, with forecasts based on Apple shifting around 19 million Watches in 2015.
Moving on to fitness trackers, widely considered the most popular genre in the emerging wearable tech arena, and the Gartner report has some serious blurred lines with its categorization. If you count just ‘wristbands’ then there were 30.15 million sales in 2015; so less sales than smartwatches.
However, with Fitbit recording around 4.5 million sales per quarter and Xiaomi apparently selling 10 million Mi Bands in just nine months of 2015, that figure seems pretty conservative. IDC reported 21 million shipments, just for the third quarter of 2015 alone.
It’s confusing to say the least, with the loose numbers reflecting the uncertain embryonic wearable tech market. And we haven’t even mentioned the purported $4 billion VR headset market yet…
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