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The Apple Watch will be the most popular smartwatch among consumers until 2020.
Over the next four years, the Watch is expected to have a market share of 43.8 per cent according to the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Device Tracker. The report also states that the smartwatch market is estimated to reach a combined value of $17.8 billion by 2020.
IDC’s mobile device trackers program vice president Ryan Reith said: “It is increasingly becoming more obvious that consumers are not willing to deal with technical pain points that have to date been associated with many wearable devices. Complaints about battery life, smartphone dependency, and minimal use cases have been well versed across most publications and research findings.
“The aforementioned improvements that are rapidly being deployed by most vendors should improve this aspect, but at the same time the increase in devices that have more fashion appeal over technological appeal should also be a catalyst to growth in both smartwatches and basic watches with minimal functionality beyond normal analogue".
The same report states that overall shipments of smartwatches will reach 20.1 million units this year, an increase of about 3.9 million from the previous year.
Statistically, this shows that vendors, not just Apple, will perhaps attempt to align themselves with driving the innovation of smartwatch technology.
