Page 35 - The EDIT | Q3 2017

Discovery
35
Growth will also come from non- tness trackers
Healthcare wearables are also expected to
be a large market in the coming years. In China for example, cardiovascular disease rates are rising and expected to hit a 50% increase by 2030. In India, 67mn people suffer from diabetes, while one third of Japan’s population will be at least 65 years old by 2055.
Boston Consulting Group estimates around
USD 700mn of venture funding went into digital health care in China in 2014 alone. Based on this estimation, BCG expects the market to grow from USD 3bn in 2014 to USD 110bn in 2020.
Aside from fitness and healthcare, one of the more straightforward uses of wearables for payments and authentication. RFID-enabled rings would
be one such way. A slightly more extreme version of this would be through RFID-enabled implants. US company Three Square Market is about to implant its employees with tiny rice-sized RFID chips, allowing them to unlock doors, access computers and make lunch payments using it. Almost two-thirds of their 80 employees have voluntarily signed up for this. Smart rings will likely be adopted first for this function — they may be slightly easier to stomach.
Are wearables meant to stay?
Without a doubt, the rate of abandonment for wearables is high, with 29% of smartwatch users and 30% of fitness users losing interest or not finding their devices useful enough. The consumer segment with the lowest retention rate is parents as they tend to keep engaged with their fitness trackers for longer than other users. Those who abandoned their devices did so because they didn’t find them useful, got bored of them, or they broke, according to the survey (Source: Gartner Dec 2016).
Wearable devices — a fashion faux-pas?
A Mintel survey found 43% of urban consumers in China would buy wearables, with the number higher among younger age groups. They are not, however, seen as fashionable by most. Smart rings, earrings, implants, and the recent Google-Levi’s denim smart jacket (see more on p. XYZ) partnership could make wearables less of a fashion faux pas and increase adoption.
With APAC already being very mobile-led, the barrier is not too great to wearable adoption. Current gen devices often require pairing with a mobile device, especially to view data.
THE EDIT ISSUE 7 | Q3 2017