Smartwear is becoming more popular by the minute. We’re seeing more and more devices getting pushed out to the market, from fitness oriented bands to full-fledged smartwatches. The difference in sales between the two might surprise you though.
DigiTimes released a report based on ABI Research in which activity trackers sell far better than smartwatches, they’re outselling smartwatches 4 to 1 in the first quarter of this year. 2.35 million activity trackers were shipped while smartwatch shipments were less than 600,000. FitBit is still leading the pact but is getting some competition from the other manufacturers. Big players like Samsung have joined the race. Here’s a statement by Nick Spencer, Senior Practice Director at ABI Research:
Activity Trackers are currently the most viable consumer electronics wearable device category, because they have a clear use case that cannot be matched by smartphones, in contrast to smartwatches. End users have been happy to ditch their watches and use smartphones to tell the time, so extending smartphone functions to the watch is a weak use case and retrograde step
Smartwatches are due to catch up though, Android Wear and iWatch are just around the corner. Do you own a smartband or a smartwatch?
SOURCE: DigiTimes