GPS fitness watch market to grow 50 percent in 2013 regardless of Apple rumors

ENGLAND: Whether the Apple smart watch rumor is true or not, the GPS fitness watch market is set to reach $1.07 billion in 2013, according to ABI Research’s latest quarterly “GPS & GNSS” Market Data, which forecasts fitness watches split by price tier.

Senior analyst Patrick Connolly said: “Low cost watches rapidly emerged in 2012, and are forecast to take a significant chunk of the market in 2013. From a competitive point of view, projected GPS IC shipment estimates indicate leading watch, fitness apparel, and electronics vendors are planning to release new products in this space in 2013. In 2012, Motorola’s MOTOACTV watch was a great example of how a new entrant can instantly win market share with a strong feature set and good price point.”

But it’s not just the established names that are getting involved. At CES, there was a lot of activity around health/fitness watches from start-ups such as Leikr, Pebble, Basis and others. I’m Here and Bia Sport could shake up the GPS fitness device market in 2013 with cellular-connected GPS fitness watches.

There is also a huge opportunity for smaller players to work with major application developers like Runkeeper, as a distribution channel. Device manufacturers need to accept that users now have a familiarity and bank of data with certain applications. The ability to tie in data from a device rather than migrating to a whole new analytics package will be enticing for many.

Dominique Bonte added: “There have already been unfounded rumors around Apple in 2013, so let’s wait and see. If an Apple watch did feature integrated GPS, it would no doubt significantly boost shipment forecasts in 2013.”