Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Wearables spur on health consumerization

The wearables market for health and wellness is on the cusp of a significant stride forward, thanks to modern wearable technologies that provide the means to collect and manage health and wellness data in a more convenient and automated fashion. Parks Associates data shows growth in several wearables categories, including digital pedometers and GPS watches.

Wearable devices and their apps offer new means for consumers to manage their health and wellness. Wearables have emerged for fitness tracking, medical condition management, wellness monitoring, and personal safety assistance, among other use cases. New form factors like earbuds, headbands, patches, and smart fabrics enable the collection of new forms of data and push the use case horizon even further.

Parks Associates wearable device research shows U.S. consumers are interested in the benefits that wearable devices provide for health use cases:

  • 29% of U.S. broadband households own one connected health device, and 12% own multiple connected health devices.
  • More than 60% of future smart watch buyers plan to use a smart watch to track fitness.
  • 35% of U.S. smart watch owners are willing to share data from their device for a health insurance discount. 

From the article "Wearables spur on health consumerization" by Jennifer Kent.

Previously In The News

Google's Nest Struggles Could Set Back The IoT Movement

The smart home devices sold by Google's home automation subsidiary, Nest, represent just a small fraction of the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) market. However, Nest has become one of the most re...

19% of US Broadband Homes Cancelled an OTT Video Service in the Past 12 Months

Parks Associates announced that the churn rate for OTT video services is 19% of US broadband households, indicating roughly one in five households have cancelled an OTT service in the past 12 months....

Voice and the Consumer Markets: Accelerated Growth

Consumers have been relatively quick to embrace voice-based applications, especially considering early experiences with voice technology, such as automated toll-free phone systems, were not particular...

Hulu Is Slowing, Hits 12 Million Subscribers Versus Netflix’s 81 Million

But growing membership is harder to keep up at the same clip for all streaming services, as more and more companies launch their own online platforms. As consumers shift more of their entertainment di...