Study: Wearable computing market to hit $1.5B by 2014
updated 05:12 am EDT, Thu November 1, 2012
Project Glass, smart watches to lead sales
The market for wearable computers will reach $1.5 billion by the year 2014, according to a recent study. The increase from the existing $800 million in sales this year will be driven by consumer spending on fitness and healthcare-related devices, which would include the likes of Google's Project Glass as well as smart watches.
The report by Jupiter Research suggests that the North American and Western Europe markets for wearable computing will reach a combined 60 percent of global sales. While the number of fitness and sports devices bought per year is higher than that of healthcare devices, it is believed that the health sector will be marginally higher in terms of retail value.
It isn't clear how the market will be divided in terms of device form factor. The always-visible heads-up-display system found in Project Glass and other similar devices could be too conspicuous for the general public to adopt, though as BlueTooth headsets have proved, it isn't impossible. Smart watches may end up gaining more traction, despite usually needing to connect to a smartphone.
