Smartwatch sales are expected to soar in coming years, potentially good news for Apple, which is facing slowing demand for its blockbuster iPhone smartphone.
Sales of smartwatches are projected to rise 66 per cent from 30.32m units in 2015 to 50.4m units this year generating some $11.5bn in revenues for a range of global companies. That figure is expected to double from 2015 levels to 66.71m units in 2017, with smartwatch adoption rising “largely due to Apple popularising wearables as a lifestyle trend,” according to Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner.
The Apple watch, which was introduced only last year, had record sales in the holiday quarter as the company expanded distribution. Some analysts have said the company could unveil the second-generation of the Apple watch at its March event.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR & Co said that the Apple watch could represent a “pivotal opportunity to diversify beyond core devices” and that “the wearables category potentially has a silver bullet product that can start to move consumers towards this new avenue of technology growth and drive adoption of the Apple watch”.
Research from Gartner also offered some hope for wearable cameramaker GoPro — which having misjudged the market with its Hero4 Session camera warned that sales in the fourth quarter would disappoint analysts and that it was axing 7 per cent of its staff.
While GoPro faces increasing competition, the company could stand to benefit from sales of bodyworn cameras that are expected to climb from 50,000 units last year to 1.05m units in 2017, according to Gartner.
Gartner expects wearable device sales to rise 18.4 per cent year-on-year to 274.6m units in 2016 with revenues of $28.7bn.