Apple will continue to lead the field in smartwatches, according to new research. It will have over a quarter of the market in 2023, which will have significantly increased, IDC said.
Huge Growth By Apple Still Leads
The report forecasted significant growth in the smartwatch market in the coming years. It said the market will increase from 91.8 million units in 2019 to 131.6 million in 2023. Apple will have a 25.9% share of the market in 2023, it predicted. Android, WearOS, Tizen, amongst others, will aim to compete.
More Smartwatch Use Cases
The researchers expect smartwatches to have a growing number of use cases too as time goes on. As well as being a health and fitness tool, they expect the ability to do things like track kids’ location to increase. The devices will also become more incorporated into smart home systems. “Smartwatches, as always, will still tell you the time, but will move deeper into health and fitness and connect with multiple applications and systems, both at work and within the home,” said Ramon T. Llamas, research director for IDC’s Wearables team.
Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobile Device Trackers, said:
Among all watches, close to half will have the ability to connect to a cellular network by 2023 as consumers along with enterprises and healthcare look to free the watch from the phone and as telcos push forward subsidies or financing options for watches with cellular service.