Canalys: Wearable is where IT's at

Analyst claims wearable tech is going to 'come from nowhere' in the next two years, and it means an opportunity for the channel

Wearable technology is going to be the next big thing for the IT industry, according to research from Canalys.

Speaking at the Canalys Channels Forum 2013 in Barcelona, Daniel Matte, analyst at the firm, said that although the growth will mainly be driven by the consumer appetite for the technology, it is still an opportunity for the channel because of the need for managing and storing the volume of data created by the products.

Matte said the growth is centered around the demand for both accessories and "appcessories" and the trend towards automating the home.

Three drivers have emerged in the wearable space, he explained - in terms of technology, users want insight not data; there is a new generation of sensors doing things that cannot be covered on a smartphone, such as medical devices for measuring heart rate or blood pressure; and lastly a new iteration of Bluetooth allowing the development of lower protocol wireless accessories that have a battery life of up to two years.

"We also think that smart bands are going to be the next big consumer category, with 2014 the year where this takes off - growing to 23.5m units shipped by 2015. This category is going to emerge from nowhere in the next couple of years," Matte said.

The growth is driven by the inevitable decline of traditional markets such as the PC market, which is in a state of transition at the moment, explained senior Canalys analyst Tim Coulling.

He said that many of the top 10 PC vendors had seen their notebook markets decline, and with so many top players he predicted some would be M&A targets.

"This isn't just a western Europe condition," he said. "It is happening everywhere."

As a result, Canalys said it was categorising tablets as a form of PC which represented 43 per cent of the PC market in the second quarter of the year.

"Lots of vendors are embracing the tablet form factor and bringing new products to market - the trends are now where tablets are being purchased," he said. He also predicted that Apple is going to see is position transitioned away from market leader to just another vendor, as the competition continues to get stiffer.

He said that according to Canalys figures, Apple owns 34.6 per cent of the tablet market this year, compared with 72 per cent a year ago. The decline is fuelled by Android, as the operating system is adopted by vendors such as HP and Acer, all looking to chip away at Apple's stronghold.

"Amazon is now number four in the EMEA tablet market - who would have thought several years ago that Amazon, an electronic retailer, would get into the hardware market?" he said.

And again, the growing tablet market is an opportunity for the channel, Coulling said, with the channel's role to ease customer pain points such as security and manageability issues, lack of apps, the cost of integration, concerns over employee productivity and cost of initial hardware purchase.