Smartwatches drive wearable growth
 

A report from market research company IDC said that by 2019, 200 million wearables will ship.

And the driver for the growth is the smartwatch, according to the report.

IDC estimates that 34.3 million smartwatches will ship next year, while by 2019 shipments will amount to 88.3 million units, amounting for a large percentage of the total wearable market.

While the jury is still out on how successful smatwatches will be, Ramon Llamas, a research manager at IDC, said that smartwatches have changed from being extensions of a smartphone to “wearable computers capable of communications, notifications, applications and numerous other functionalities”. He continued: “The smartwatch we have today will look nothing like the smartwatch we will see in the future”.

He said that cellular connectivity and health censors “will change the game”.

IDC believes that Apple’s watchOS will lead the field from now until 2019. The Android OS will be “a distant second”, while the market will include traditional watch makers like Fossil and Tag Heuer.

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