Wearable Electronics & Mobile Healthcare Sensors Market Report

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Sensors for Wearable Electronics & Mobile Healthcare" report to their offering.

Wearable electronics is one of the consumer market's hottest topics. Giants like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei are now competing for a slice of a very promising pie. Regarding our report's analysis, we estimate that the wearable industry will reach 295M units by 2020, with a market value of $95B.

Three markets will drive this impressive growth: consumer, healthcare, and industrial. Wearable technology is expected to be part of the IoT revolution, bringing useful information directly to the user in a more natural and friendly way than with traditional electronic devices. We expect the consumer market, which is mostly comprised of fitness bands and smart watches to grow faster than the other two. The healthcare market, which covers devices like hearing aids, blood pressure monitors, and back monitor sensors, is expected to grow at a lower rate, since this market has already been growing for many years. Regarding the industrial market, we expected slow, steady growth through 2019, with a significant uptick commencing in 2020.

Three device types are expected to successfully reach the market: smartwatch, smart glasses/HUD, and smart clothing. Smart glasses and HUD are expected to hit the market with high volumes around 2019. Specific to the consumer market, it's evolved with two device types. The first type are wrist-worn devices that target the healthcare and consumer markets. It started many years ago, with wrist-worn devices from players like Polar, Suunto, and Garmin, operating in a niche market: sports. Another wave of smart bands appeared in 2008, fueled by new players like Fitbit and Jawbone; this new generation mimics the smartphone approach in that they use MEMS technologies to reduce size, increase performance and decrease power consumption.

Recently, a new tech wave occurred three years ago with players like Samsung and Pebble pushing the smartwatch market, but they failed to reach a mass market due to a one-sided technological approach. Apple, the latest entrant in the wearable landscape with its Apple watch, is expected to sell 16 - 20M units this year, which would quadruple the total number of devices that its competitors sold last year (4.7M units in 2014). Why could the Apple watch achieve success? This report discusses three factors: mature technology, ecosystem, and marketing.

Regarding the industrial market, we believe that smart glasses/HUD and smart clothing will be well-suited for industrial and military applications. Virtual reality HUD and smart clothing will enhance workers' and soldiers' capabilities, increasing productivity and security. Such a market is evaluated at around $4B by 2020.

Wearable is certainly a promising industry - but who will profit? Wearable electronics' market value is likely to grow from $22B in 2015 to more than $90B by 2020, with a CAGR of 28%. All these evolutions will probably lead to a mass-market adoption, here we expect more than 134M, smartwatches by 2020, along with 1.3M smart glasses/HUD by 2018. In this report, we'll analyze the current wearable industry, what the landscape is like, who the key players, and how the industry will evolve.

Software is another area that's acquiring value, with sensor fusion creating smarter sensors. Such improvements have led to sublime new features like context awareness or always-on sensors, which has increased device intelligence. All these improvements will lead the global sensors market for wearable from 112M units in 2014, to 835M units by 2020, which is proof that this market is still in its infancy.