In 2017 in the global market will be 43 million smart watches, and the following four years, their sales doubled and in 2021-m reach 86 million units. With such a forecast made by analysts of research company CCS Insight. According to experts, in the next generation of Apple Watch will be able to function completely independently from the iPhone.
Experts call the Apple Watch the pioneer category. It is understood that Apple’s smartwatch wasn’t the first in its class, however, as analysts, Apple led manufacturers traditional hours to master a new direction. Among watch brands, the first to market a smart watch out such companies as Fossil, Guess Watches and TAG Heuer.
Analysts predict a rise in the category of “smart” hours with the release of the Apple Watch Series 3. The fact that the new model reportedly will be released in 2017 and will receive the support of cellular communication, with the result that the device can work independently from the iPhone. Following the “Apple” company this feature will introduce other manufacturer. It is expected that this year 9% of all released smart watches with touch screens will support cellular communication, and by 2021-mu, the share of such models will increase to 12%.
CCS Insight also drew attention to the successes of producers, and sports smart watch. Companies like Garmin, TomTom, Suunto and Polar in recent years demonstrate stable sales growth, the study said.
“Assessing the popularity of sports-oriented watches, Apple and Samsung have become embedded in their devices, more and more fitness functions in order to increase their attractiveness for buyers. Currently among the producers of smart hours there was a cautious optimism due to the fact that sales of the more simple fitness trackers came to a halt,” said CCS Insight analyst George Gogiashvili.
A significant change compared with the previous estimate CCS Insight was that the experts downgraded the Outlook for analog smart watch that look like the traditional, but at the same time have a basic smart functions.
“Initially, we thought that analog smart watch will become the main source of sales in the coming years, however, the results of models hitting the market over the past 18 months has been worse than expected,” — said the expert.
Also in CCS Insight’s updated forecast for the wider market of wearable electronics, which experts, in addition to smart watches, consider all the types of fitness trackers, smart clothing, including shoes, smart glasses, wearable cameras, etc. Its volume in real terms will grow from 96 million devices in 2017 to 185 million in 2021, and in monetary terms is expected to rise from 10.8 to almost $17 billion.
