More than a few eyebrows went up when Apple unveiled a version of the Apple Watch that started at US$10,000 (CA$13,000) last March. Did Apple really expect to compete against established luxury brands offering high-end watches? While Apple has yet to announce how many Apple Watches it has sold, analytics firm NetBase has found that it has surpassed Rolex on its list of global luxury […]
Market analysis
Google Glass no longer smart glasses market leader
Google Glass made smart glasses a household name among early wearables adopters and consumers at large. While it’s not clear how well (or poorly) it sold, it became the defacto standard to which all other smart glasses were compared. Google put an end to its Glass Explorer Program in January 2015 but promised that it was not done with smart glasses. […]
Smartband and smartwatch sales could top 100 million units in 2016
Wearables proved to be a hot product category in 2015. Juniper Research this week pegged smartwatch shipments alone at 17.1 million units last year. Sales of fitness bands easily exceed those numbers. No one expects shipments to slow down any time soon and Digitimes predicts that sales of smartwatches and smartbands will hit 100 million units this year. The report adds that the second-generation Apple […]
Apple Watch accounts for 52% of 2015 smartwatch sales
Early signs already suggested that the Apple Watch dominated smartwatch sales in 2015. A new report from Juniper Research found that it accounted for 52% of the market last year despite only launching in April. Of the 17.1 million smartwatches sold over the course of the year, Apple sold 8.89 million of them. Despite the launch of high profile devices such as the […]
Wearable technology accounts for 1% of entire fashion market
2015 was a breakout year for wearables. While final numbers are not in yet, IDC predicts that about 80 million wearables will ship before the end of the year. While smartwatches and fitness trackers dominate, other wearables include clothing that can measure your heart rate and breathing volume (like Hexoskin’s Smart Shirts) or display messages (like MeU’s interactive clothing). While wearable technology […]
IDC: Global wearable shipments to top 200 million in 2019
2015 was a banner year for wearables. Shipments jumped from the previous year as consumers flocked to strap on smartwatches like the Apple Watch and fitness trackers from Fitbit. International Data Corporation (IDC) now expects that 80 million wearables will ship before the end of the year. The next few years promise to show equally strong growth with global wearable shipments to top […]
7% of Americans planning to gift an Apple Watch this holiday season
The Apple Watch dominates the smartwatch market. It accounted for 74% of all smartwatch shipments in Q3 according to Strategy Analytics. Its domination could grow even further this quarter if a recent Reuters poll is any indication. According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week, about 7 percent of U.S. adults plan on giving an Apple Watch to someone (or themselves) this holiday […]
Fitbit retains wearables lead in Q3 2015 as wearable shipments hit new record
Wearable shipments have been on a tear in 2015 and Q3 proved to be no exception. In its latest Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, IDC reports that wearable shipments reached the 21 million unit mark. This is nearly three times more than the 7.1 million units shipped back in Q3 2014. “The early stages of the wearables market have led to […]