Market intelligence firm Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 310.4 million wearable devices will be sold worldwide in 2017, an increase of 16.7 percent from 2016 (see Table 1). Sales of wearable devices will generate revenue of $30.5 billion in 2017. Of that, $9.3 billion will be from smartwatches.
In 2017, 41.5 million smartwatches will be sold, reaching a revenue of $17.4 billion. They are on pace to account for the highest unit sales of all wearable device form factors from 2019 to 2021, aside from Bluetooth headsets. By 2021, sales of smartwatches are estimated to total nearly 81 million units, representing 16 percent of total wearable device sales.Revenue from smartwatches is bolstered by relatively stable average selling prices (ASPs) of Apple Watch.
Table 1 shows the (predicted) amount of sales for wearable devices.
Device | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2021 |
Smartwatch | 34.80 | 41.50 | 48.20 | 80.96 |
Head-mounted display | 16.09 | 22.01 | 28.28 | 67.17 |
Body-worn camera | 0.17 | 1.05 | 1.59 | 5.62 |
Bluetooth headset | 128.50 | 150.00 | 168.00 | 206.00 |
Wristband | 34.97 | 44.10 | 48.84 | 63.86 |
Sports watch | 21.23 | 21.43 | 21.65 | 22.31 |
Other fitness monitor | 30.12 | 30.28 | 30.97 | 58.73 |
Total | 265.88 | 310.37 | 347.53 | 504.65 |
Table 1: Forecast for Wearable Devices Worldwide 2016-2018 and 2021 (Millions of Units)
Source: Gartner (August 2017)
<link http: www.gartner.com>www.gartner.com
