Skip to main content

Upside for Smart Wearable Bands and Software Apps

Both basic and smart wearable bands are an emerging high growth market. A total of 2.7 million wearable bands shipped worldwide in Q1 2014, according to the latest market study by Canalys. Fitbit maintained its leadership position with nearly 50 percent market share.

Fitbit continued to ship most of the units in the basic band segment. Jawbone, another basic band competitor, also grew rapidly as it expanded its international distribution after the initial launch of the UP24 in Q4. Nike’s share of basic band shipments, however, dropped to 10 percent.

"The Nike+ FuelBand has frankly been outmatched on sales," said Daniel Matte, analyst at Canalys. "Its competitors’ speed, international reach, broader channel distribution, integration with other fitness communities, superior web sites and multi-platform support have proven to be major advantages."

Though Nike has been reported to be canceling future FuelBand products, the company’s focus is now on making use of its fitness software and Nike+ community of over 30 million users to promote its thousands of apparel products.

Canalys expects Nike's software to extend to Apple's upcoming smart band, which will likely be announced in the second half of this year. Besides, market shares in the smart band segment continue to change frequently as new products are released, and will continue to do so throughout 2014.

Pebble Technology launched the Pebble Steel and the Pebble app store and grew at a healthy rate during Q1, managing to achieve smart band market leadership for the quarter with a 35 percent share of worldwide shipments, ahead of both Sony and Samsung.

Canalys quarterly estimates showed that total smart band shipments fell short of half a million units. This is largely because Samsung's shipments were down dramatically quarter on quarter as it had strong sell-in for Q4 and then cleared inventory in preparation for its Gear product refresh in early Q2. The company must make some big steps to improve sell-through and customer satisfaction with its new products.

Some industry observers are wondering if the wearables market is a failure, but Canalys believes the current dynamics instead reflect the rapidly changing nature of wearable devices. More sophisticated sensor technology designed specifically for wearables will be arriving soon.

New devices running Android Wear will launch this summer from LG and other vendors, such as Motorola, which is now poised to re-enter the smart band market after exiting it two years ago.

Popular posts from this blog

AI-Driven Data Center Liquid Cooling Demand

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and hyperscale cloud computing is fundamentally reshaping data center infrastructure, and liquid cooling is emerging as an indispensable solution. As traditional air-cooled systems reach their physical limits, the IT industry is under pressure to adopt more efficient thermal management strategies to meet growing demands, while complying with stringent environmental regulations. Liquid Cooling Market Development The latest ABI Research analysis reveals momentum in liquid cooling adoption. Installations are forecast to quadruple between 2023 and 2030. The market will reach $3.7 billion in value by the decade's end, with a CAGR of 22 percent. The urgency behind these numbers becomes clear when examining energy metrics: liquid cooling systems demonstrate 40 percent greater energy efficiency when compared to conventional air-cooling architectures, while simultaneously enabling ~300-500 percent increases in computational density per rac...