~99% of total revenue contributed by consumer wearables in
2014
SYDNEY, May 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Australia's market for wearable technologies
is considered to be in its inception stage, although 2014 saw the
advent of several trials and prototypes. The release of the Apple
Watch on 24 April 2015 is expected to
ignite interest in wearables as well as accelerate sales of
wearable devices in Australia.
This in turn will spur greater innovation from other players in the
industry and drive new partnerships amongst vendors and
distributors.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150526/218287
Frost & Sullivan's new report, Australian Wearable
Technologies Report 2015, forecasts a CAGR of approximately 78%
for the period 2014 to 2018, with revenues expected to reach
$1 billion by 2018. This growth will
be contributed to by a combination of factors; including innovation
from local startups, high levels of activity in mergers and
acquisitions and competition amongst global players such as Google
and Apple as each attempt to dominate the market for the Internet
of Things (IoT) in Australia.
Australian culture places an emphasis on fitness and sport, and
as such, consumer wearables such as FitBit, JawBone and other
health and fitness trackers are immensely popular. In 2014, the
consumer wearables segment accounted for 99% of total wearables
revenues. Demand for these products is likely to increase even more
over the next five years, so the consumer segment is expected to
account for a substantial part of overall revenues over the
forecast period.
Audrey William, Head of ICT
Research, Frost & Sullivan Australia & New Zealand said there has been minimal use of
wearable technology for business applications. "In the enterprise
(business) segment, most wearable technologies are currently at the
prototype stage. However, Frost & Sullivan expects significant
enterprise adoption of wearable technology from around 2017 as
several companies, especially in the Mining and Oil & Gas
industries are already looking to trial wearable products."
The advances and innovations in software will allow businesses
to harness and leverage wearable technologies beyond the current
capability of wearable devices. "For instance, new wearable
technology sensors embedded within smart shirt/vests can enhance
worker safety and safer working environments for field technicians
in mines by recording and analysing data on temperature, air
quality and gaseous leaks. Ultimately, wearable technologies has
the potential to impact every industry in Australia, including Mining, Oil & Gas,
Engineering, Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing, Logistics and
Leisure & Entertainment," added William.
Wonjae Shim, Research Analyst,
ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan Australia & New Zealand said Big Data will play a key role
in transforming the future of wearable technologies as wearable
devices collect large amounts of data. "Subsequently, service
providers and data analytics companies can derive detailed
analysis, providing trends and insights to service providers and
businesses to make informed decisions to improve business processes
and sales, reduce costs and enhance R&D capabilities," Shim
explained.
Several local Australian technology start-ups have already
joined the wearables innovation foray, venturing to launch products
like smart shirts, smart wrist bands and smart bands for health
monitoring and fitness tracking. Some of these companies include
Catapult Sports, Ollo Wearables, Smash Wearables, Wearable
Experiments and MJ Bale, and they offer fresh innovation and
expansion options via acquisitions for the bigger, established
players in the market. Frost & Sullivan expects mergers and
acquisitions and cross industry collaboration to be a key feature
to drive the next level of innovation in the wearable technologies
market.
Eventually, competition will intensify as market players vie for
dominance within the Internet of Things arena. "Key players are
likely to be Apple, Google and Samsung. These vendors don't just
contend within the wearables market, but are building a larger
ecosystem of products and services across home automation, home
entertainment, home security, glass, wristbands and heads unit
displays, as well as an ecosystem of products across mobile devices
and home appliances," added Shim.
Wearable technology is not devoid of issues and obstacles; key
challenges to mass adoption include technical impediments such as
battery life, miniaturisation of embedded sensors, wearable data
management and interoperability and compatibility among competing
vendors and platforms. A major restraint in the growth of the
Internet of Things and the use of wearable technologies will be
security. As a consequence, Frost & Sullivan expects
significant investments will be made toward security enhancements
which will result in an increase of product take-up and growth in
the overall wearables market.
The on-demand webinar recording by Audrey William and Arvind Arun on the Australian Wearables
Technologies Report is available here:
https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/5567/157481
Frost & Sullivan's Australian Wearable Technologies
Report 2015 forms part of the Frost & Sullivan Australia
and New Zealand Cloud and IoT research program. All research
services included in this subscription provide detailed market
opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive
interviews with market participants. If you are interested in more
information on these studies, please send an e-mail with your
contact details to Donna Jeremiah,
Corporate Communications, at djeremiah@frost.com.
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