Market Research firm Telsyte is tipping the Australian smart watch market to be worth in excess of $400m annually by 2018. “With some 370,000 smart watches sold in 2014, Australians are warming to wearable computing,” says Telsyte.
“Smart watches have the potential to disrupt the traditional market as people consider wearable devices an extension to their smartphone and apps they use for fitness and communications,” Telsyte says.
According to Telsyte’s Australian Smartphone & Wearable Devices Market Study 2015, the smart watch market is expected to grow by at least 50 percent in 2015 thanks to the arrival of an Apple Watch. Samsung, an early entrant in to the smart watch market is the current market leader, according to Telsyte.
Telsyte managing director, Foad Fadaghi, says smart watches will become more appealing to consumers as new stylish and featured devices enter the market, with the 25 to 44 year-old age group representing the best sales opportunity in 2015.
“There is a lot of anticipation for the Apple smart watch and our research indicates half of all smart fitness band users are looking to upgrade to a smart watch, creating a potentially vibrant new product category” he said.
Telsyte’s research found the top three applications people want from a smart watch to be: to check the time and date; to use it an alarm clock or a reminder alert; to read messages, including e-mail.
These are all functions that, of course, can be performed on any smartphone and according to Telsyte research there were 16.8 million smartphone users in Australia at the end of December 2014 with sales of just below five million units in the second half of 2014.
