Fitness remains at the top of the wearables ecosystem

While the Apple Watch has been in the headlines as the first truly successful smart watch launch, it is worth noting that the market for smart wearables remains dominated by fitness trackers. Euromonitor’s recent survey of 8,000 online consumers in 16 different markets has reinforced the dominance of the fitness and health use cases for wearables.

Overall, fitness/health bracelets, belts and clips were particularly popular among respondents' intent to purchase. Smart watches were the second-most popular category and child-tracking devices were the third-most. Regardless of the form factor – whether a smart watch, fitness bracelet, glasses or clip – the most important features in wearables technology according to the survey were location and navigation, and health monitoring and fitness tracking.

Interestingly, consumers in India, China, Brazil and Mexico were most likely to want to purchase a smart watch. This was apparently a trend for many emerging markets, where purchase intent was almost three times higher on average than in developed markets such as Japan, Germany or the US. Part of this could be a selection bias in the survey itself given that online consumers in developing markets may be disproportionately affluent than those in developed markets. However, it does point to an intriguing proposition: will smart watch adoption in emerging markets grow more quickly than in developed markets for online shoppers?

See a comparison table of selected health monitoring wristband suppliers on GlobalSources.com