Distributor will offer full range of Samsung wearables and will offer training to its partners on the market opportunity
Exertis Micro-P says wearables is becoming a mass consumer market as it announced a deal to provide the full range of wearable devices from Samsung.
The distributor will offer the Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch and the Samsung Gear Fit and hold events to educate its UK partners on the market opportunity and how to position the products.
“It’s niche (the wearables market) but it will start to move into the consumer,” sales director Simon Woodman told Mobile News. “The problem is the products are good now but what we’re starting to see coming out towards the back of the year will take it out of the niche and consumerise it.”
The distributor has partnered with a well known analyst institution to provide data on the market and will highlight the proposition at ‘strategic boot camps’ later this month. Exertis claims that global shipments of heart rate monitors will increase by 60 per cent from 11 million in 2011, to 17.7 million in 2015, while sports watches are on the verge of doubling from 3.5 million in 2011 to over seven million next year.
Woodman says that Jawbone’s UP24 fitness tracker has been a “phenomenal success” since it went on sale, and the firm has also been distributing the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch and Sony’s smartwatch. It has now identified other market sectors such as B2B and the education market which it can push the products into.
“Retail has got some good opportunities and we’ve also identified some vertical markets that we’re going to go after,” adds Woodman, “It really depends on the products and there’s numerous opportunities in wearable tech, but you can’t just have one strategy – you’e got to go across the different market sectors.”
“We’ve got an education focus, some products coming through that are ideal for education. Clearly, you’ve got the fit opportunity, the stress-related one, weight loss – there are lot’s of different areas we can go that are non-traditional.”