Another day, another conflicting headline on smartwatches and activity trackers.
Contrary to past reports on the unprecedented surging sales of smartwatches, it turns out that activity trackers are hotter commodities.
ABI Research reports that Activity Trackers actually dominated sales of wearable devices in Q1 2014, outselling much-hyped smartwatches by 4 to 1, with 2.35 million devices shipped.
Fitbit remains the market leader, with a majority share, but will face more competition in Q2 2014 and over the course of the year, especially with Samsung about to launch the hybrid Samsung Gear Fit.
“Activity Trackers are currently the most viable consumer electronics wearable device category, because they have a clear use case that cannot be matched by smartphones, in contrast to smartwatches,” says senior practice director Nick Spencer. “End users have been happy to ditch their watches and use smartphones to tell the time, so extending smartphone functions to the watch is a weak use case and retrograde step.”
