Wearables are today all about wellness

Forrester Research:

US consumer adoption of wearable devices will reach 29% in 2021, up from 18% last year, according to a new Forrester Data forecast. Today the vast majority of consumers who own and use wearables have a health or wellness device (17%), while monitoring, retail, notifications, and travel are expected to grow…

• Wearables sales will grow from $4.2 billion in 2015 to $9.8 billion in 2021. Both device volume and a larger mix of more expensive wearable devices such as smartwatches, apparel, and glasses will fuel the revenue number.
• Smartwatch sales will hit $16 million in 2021. By 2021, over one-third of the 46 million wearables sold will be smartwatches. Higher consumer adoption of mobile payments, voice, notifications, and wellness applications will spur growth.
• While some digital businesses have wearables strategies today, these are nascent with a focus on piloting watch apps in order to learn. Just over a third (34%) of businesses do not have a wearables strategy today and do not plan on implementing one in the future, while only 11% currently follow a wearables strategy.