Market Overview

The wearable technology and devices market is unfolding at a rapid pace, with the industry going towards a focal point business are prioritizing service enhancement, apart from adding additional new features to the device itself. Wearable devices have remained a significant part of the sports industry, supporting the athlete to stick to daily routines and giving important information on various parameters it is programmed to control. Integration of analytics tools for better evaluating and analyzing this data to improve the performance or handling overall personal fitness has sustained the need for wearable devices in the sports industry.

  • The growth in the wearables market can be attributed to increasing demand coupled with the propagation and suitability of improved communications protocol and miniaturization of sensor technology. Sensors and wearable devices can be combined into multiple accessories such as wristwear, garments, shoes, and eyeglasses because of their compressed or compact size and superior integration technologies.
  • The factors influencing the wearable devices in the sports market include entry of big players, portable and comfortable usage, and elevated healthcare awareness, the soaring cost of manufacturing, and technological progressions. These important factors have encouraged the adoption of wearable devices. Wearable devices such as activity trackers, smartwatches, and smart clothing are preferred among customers, owing to their numerous advantages including portable usage and most modern and advanced technological advancements.
  • Wearable electronic devices find various applications in fitness and sports for controlling and monitoring parameters such as heart rate, calorie consumption, sleep, and blood pressure. Wearable devices permit a user to check health-related information on their smart wearables.



Scope of the Report

Wearable technology (also called wearable gadgets) that are used by athletes and sports teams are considered in the scope of the market. Wearables used for sports, like consumer wearables, often incorporate tracking information associated with health and fitness. Sports wearables work in conjunction with other analytical applications that provide actionable insights to increase the productivity and also for future planning. These wearable devices have minute motion sensors among others to capture data and synchronize with mobile devices.

Key Market Trends

Smart Clothing Set to be a Significant Contributing Factor Towards the Growth of the Market

  • Smart clothing/textiles are fabrics that are manufactured and designed to integrate technologies that offer the wearer with increased functionality. These textiles have various potential applications, such as the ability to communicate with other devices, conduct energy, transform into other materials and protect the wearer from environmental hazards. Increasing R&D towards wearable textile-based personal systems allowing, e.g., health monitoring, protection, and safety, and healthy lifestyle gained strong interest over the last few years.
  • Smart fabrics and interactive textiles activities include personal sports management through integration, validation, and use of smart clothing and other networked mobile devices as well as projects targeting the integration of sensors/actuators, energy sources, processing and communication within the clothes to enable personal applications such as safety/ protection, emergency.



North America to Provide Significant Opportunities

  • Internet and cloud technology penetration, the emergence of professional leagues, and digitalization of sports are driving the adoption of sports technology in North America, especially in the US.
  • Wearables are already popular in the US soccer culture. The US Soccer athletes have been wearing them while playing for many years. companies like STATSports and Catapult Sports, which are popular in the GPS tracking space have been greatly benefitted by these trends.
  • The recent activity among the professional teams across almost all popular sports prompts a strong share of Wearable devices for the Sports market. For instance, in March 2018, the United States Soccer Federation (US Soccer) partnered with STATSports for their on-field performance monitoring devices, in an effort to improve data collection and player development.



Competitive Landscape

The wearable devices in the sports market are moderately competitive and mostly comprises of startups. Several sports wear-brands that have entered the market. For instance, Adidas, a popular sports-wear brand developed a sports platform and apps, miCoach. The company, however, shut down its business after acquiring Runtastic, an Austrian mobile fitness company.

With the increasing importance on performance and rising levels of competition in the sporting industry, the market is poised to witness strong growth over and beyond the forecast period. Overall, the market provides significant opportunities for technology companies that target the niche (sports) in the large wearables market.

  • June 2018 - Fujitsu expanded its sports analytics business in Japan through RUN.EDGE?a Fujitsu subsidiary established through a company split.
  • July 2019 - Catapult and ShotTracker announced a new partnership to develop an integration that will allow the delivery of Catapult’s performance and workload-based data, with ShotTracker’s 70+ unique tactical statistics, through a single workflow. with this integrated technolgy, the companies aim to to deliver real-time statistics and analytics to teams, fans and broadcast networks for professional and collegiate basketball teams.



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