Twice as Many Consumers Own Activity Trackers as Smartwatches, NPD Says
When rumors of the Apple Watch “really began to ramp up,” NPD observed “a tremendous surge in awareness” in the smartwatch category, NPD consumer electronics analyst Ben Arnold told a Display Week conference in San Francisco. Smartwatch awareness soon exceeded…
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that of Fitbit devices, even though activity trackers are “the more mature product on the market,” Arnold said. NPD estimates more than twice as many U.S. consumers -- 16 percent vs. 7 percent -- own a Fitbit-like activity tracker than own a smartwatch, he said. There recently has been a “very healthy growth rate” in sales of activity trackers, Arnold said, citing NPD point-of-sale retail data. “There’s a lot of technology categories that would kill for 40-45 percent growth year on year,” he said. “So the idea that the Apple Watch would be a wearables killer, would be a Fitbit killer, if you will, hasn’t really played out in our data." Fitbit, in NPD’s estimations, owns about 80 percent of the activity-tracker market, said the analyst. If any company can give Fitbit a run for its money in the activity-tracker segment, Arnold is placing his bets on Microsoft, he said.