Wearables…. the latest big bang in consumer electronics

Indranil Dutta

Wearables…the newest term in consumer electronics market. Since its official inception few years back, it has managed to create significant amount of buzz in the market. With its close knit relation with IoT, experts have already labelled wearables as the next big thing.

From consumer perspective as well, the response for such devices across the globe is quite amazing so far. As people across the globe moving towards digital lifestyle, besides other multi-function devices, there is a strong craving for wearable devices. Moreover, consumers are getting more aware of health and fitness related issues which are translating into strong intention towards purchase of products that suit their health and lifestyles.

Even apart from health, these devices have started showing their capability in the areas of education, transportation, enterprise, gaming and music. These are no doubt the indicators of strong markets for new categories of devices such as health, fitness and other wearable technologies.

Thus, certainly there is a demand for such devices and the vendors are ready to cater the market. As per source, by 2015 OEMs has to ship nearly $20 billion worth of wearable device to meet the global demands. Even, wearable device shipments are further expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 40% over the next 6 years, eventually accounting for 340 Million device shipments by the end of 2020. This is quite incredible considering many of the products under wearable category have just started being commercially available.

That was by and large a global scenario for wearable devices. Now the question, is India seconding the trend of the rest of the world towards wearable devices? The current scenario in India is that most people don’t know what wearable device is. If you ask someone, “what is wearable device?” there is a high probability that he/she might look at you with a blank face. However, if you ask whether they heard about Google Glass, Samsung Gear or Apple I-watch; there is a high chance that the same face will turn enthusiastic.

As per ITOPS 2014, a syndicated study conducted by IMRB, merely 1% of the respondents are aware of wearables device as a category. But, when we have asked the respondents about some of the

Awareness of Wearable Category

wearables individually, the responses were quite different. As per the survey, the awareness of Google glass, Samsung Gear and Apple i-watch are 12%, 10% and 6% respectively. These numbers are quite encouraging compared when overall category numbers.

Awareness of Three Wearable Devices

This essentially means that in India, wearable as a category is yet to get prominence but it very much exists as individual products and brands.

The purchase intention story is even more encouraging. Significant number of people expressed their intention towards the purchase of these three products in future.

Purchase Intent of Three Wearable Products

The fact to be noted is that, here we are talking about the awareness and purchase intent of just three products and the scores look promising. Now, when we look at the broader categories like fitness monitors, smart watches and Internet-connected eyeglasses, industry reports show that inclination towards purchase is very high amongst Indian customers.

That is the reason why the wearable companies are already seeing India as a huge market for such devices and making their plans to invest in this market. While large companies like Intel is planning to build the market with partner engagements and system-on-chips development, there are many Indian start-ups like Indea systems, CarIQ Technologies are developing platform for wearable technologies.

Amongst this vibrancy around wearables, there are certain challenges that are hindering wide adoption of wearable devices. For example, the key concern is lack of awareness towards health and fitness in India amongst mass and that can act as a roadblock in mass scale adoption of fitness wearables like Samsung Gear. Moreover, there are issues with design of the devices as well. Presently most of wearable devices seem to be more focused on the technology aspect rather than the wearable element. In its current form, technology is being squeezed into a wristwatch or glasses frame and due to that aesthetics has been compromised. As today’s customers give equal importance to aesthetics along with functionality, this may retard customers to buy such devices.

However, as the awareness is on the rise and vendors are in continuous innovation mode, we can surely see the challenges getting addressed over a period of time.

So, there is no doubt about the fact that wearables is here to stay and grow. Thus, it throws tremendous opportunity to the vendors playing this space. To grab this growth opportunity, vendors should consider investing in wearable product innovation, expanding applications from health/wellness/lifestyle to more convenience and automation of tasks, design, and building ecosystems that connect wearables to interactive digital networks.

If this happens, it’s just a matter of time for wearables to spread it wings for a long flight in Indian market.

The author is the Insights Director, eTech: IT & Telecom Practice, IMRB