Digital Health Analysts to Present New Wearables Research in Webcast Thursday

Parks Associates, ahead of its upcoming digital health webcast, announced that 2% of U.S. broadband households purchased a smart watch in 2013, with another 4% very likely to purchase a smart watch in the next 12 months.

The research, including a 1Q 2014 survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households, found Samsung as the leading smart watch brand. Among smart watch buyers, 20% purchased directly from the manufacturer, 18% from Amazon, and 17% from Best Buy. Nearly one-half of consumers who acquired a smart watch in 2013 received it as a gift.

"Extending health and fitness tracking functions to wearables is not new, but many large consumer brands want to leverage their consumer influence and developer support to get into a more lucrative business—consumers’ health and behavioral data, which are critical to healthcare providers’ consumer engagement efforts,"said Harry Wang, Director of Health and Mobile Product Research at Parks Associates. “Apple and Samsung have entered this market with the HealthKit and SAMI platforms, respectively, and we expect to see a major announcement about Google Fit at the I/O conference this week.”

Wang and Senior Analyst Jennifer Kent will discuss this new research in a complimentary webcast this week. “Engaging Consumers with Connected Health Technologies” will take place Thursday, June 26, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. CT (2:00 p.m. ET). Registration is available at http://www.parksassociates.com/connected-health-june2014.

“This new market is still wide open. Samsung has established an early lead, but it will face much stronger competition when Apple and Google products hit the market,” Kent said. “Consumer acquisition is only half the battle; consumer retention will be a big struggle in wearables. Not only are wearable manufacturers battling each other for market share, but given consumers’ natural tendencies to slack off their fitness regimens, manufacturers and app developers must also work to keep consumers engaged with their products.”

Parks Associates will host the inaugural Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumersin San Diego, September 4-5, featuring keynotes from Ascension Health, Humana Wellness, Kaiser, Qualcomm Life, and Walgreens.

Media requests for analyst interviews and specific data points should be directed to Holly Sprague at hsprague@gmail.com or 720-987-6614. Press passes for the Connected Health Summit are available at http://www.parksassociates.com/events/connected-health/media.

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