Diversity in Mobile: So What About The Rest of the Wearables market

A lot of firms are stacking up numbers and graphs to show you how big the wearables market is going to be. Market analysis is pretty optimistic. According to IMS Research, the wearables market is poised to grow from 14 million devices shipped in 2011 to as many as 171 million units shipped by 2016. In a more recent estimate, ABI Research pegs the wearables market at 485 million annual device shipments by 2018. Others say the global annual wearable device unit shipments will cross the 100 million milestone in 2014, and reaching 300 million units five years from now. This slide by Business Insider sums it all up and it clearly shows two dominant form factors: the smartwatch and activity trackers. What I think is the most interesting thing about this slide is the part dubbed Rest of Wearables market. As I have noticed before, wearables are a very diverse product category. This weekend I came across an infographic illustrating this argument very well. It shows just how diverse this new mobile form factor actually is, both in hardware shape and size and on the application side as well. Click on the image to enlarge. Feel like something is missing? Please share your thought in the comments.