Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Parks: Fitness still the leading use case for smartwatches

Despite all the convenience features of modern smartwatches, for users it’s still all about fitness, according to recently released data from Parks Associates.

The research firm says that tracking steps is the most popular smartwatch use case, with 60 percent of the United States’ 13.3 million smartwatch users reporting that they track their steps with their device.

According to Senior Director of Research Harry Wang, this desire for fitness tracking, as well as heart rate monitoring, is driving a healthy interest in smartwatches generally.

“Purchase intentions for smart watches have nearly doubled since the third quarter of 2015, and the device has a high NPS (net promoter score), which bodes well for future adoption,” Wang said in a statement. “The smart watch industry learned that it has to continue to innovate to sustain consumer purchase interest, and health and fitness functions are high among their investment priorities. In the US, while companies are still experimenting with form factors, features, battery life, and pricing, the healthcare industry has shown a strong interest in leveraging wearables for patient engagement.”

From the article "Parks: Fitness still the leading use case for smartwatches" by Jonah Comstock.

Previously In The News

Streaming TV Is Alphabet’s ‘One That Got Away’

Google’s Chromecast streaming-TV device didn’t lose ground, but given that it’s only utilized as a streaming TV device by 17% of streaming video viewers — despite launching in 2013 with considerably l...

Bloomberg Attacks Apple TV As Failing To Be "A Groundbreaking, iPhone-Caliber Product"

According to U.S. market research published by Parks Associates last summer, Amazon media player products narrowly out-shipped Apple TV (for a 22 vs 20 percent share of the market) in 2015, but that a...

Apple’s Video Streaming Plans: Key Open Questions

There were 221 active over-the-top (OTT) services in the US in 2018, up from 199 in 2017, per Parks Associates. And this figure is slated to increase as Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, launch their...

Roku Shares Soar in Streaming-Device Maker’s IPO Debut

Roku faces massive, deep-pocketed competitors — but so far the 700-employee company has more than held its own in the streaming-media device market. In the first quarter of 2017, Roku had 37% share of...