Increasing Awareness of Health & Fitness Fueling Wearable Fitness Tracker Sales
With the growing public awareness about health and fitness, the demand for fitness trackers is rising sharply across the world. Moreover, the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, obesity, and hypertension is making people, both young and old, adopt healthy lifestyles and dietary habits. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the incidence of obesity increased almost three-fold from 1975 to 2016. Additionally, in 2016, around 13% of the global adult population was obese.
The growing prevalence of these health conditions is propelling the demand for fitness trackers as these devices help people track and monitor their heart rate, sleeping patterns, and the number of calories they consume in a day. Nowadays, people are increasingly using smartphone-based fitness tracking apps, as these apps are equipped with various features that help them stay fit. Moreover, these apps are available at affordable prices and are therefore, experiencing widespread popularity, especially with the mushrooming smartphone usage globally.
Besides the above-mentioned factors, the growing demand for wireless health monitoring devices, on account of the surging population of geriatric people, is also driving the sales of wearable fitness trackers. For example, people diagnosed with diabetes require continuous monitoring and are thus, extensively using these trackers. In addition to this, the unfavorable reimbursement policies being provided by various healthcare companies are making technologically advanced medical devices very expensive and unaffordable for a large number of patients.
As a result, such policies are positively impacting the demand for wearable fitness trackers across the world, which is, in turn, fueling the expansion of the global wearable fitness trackers market. Furthermore, many organizations are launching health and physical fitness awareness programs to reduce the burden on the healthcare sector. For example, Campaign to End Obesity, which is a non-profit organization based in the U.S., conducts programs for raising public awareness about issues such as exercise and proper diet.
Due to the above-mentioned factors, the value of the market is expected to grow to $48.2 billion by 2023. Furthermore, the market will exhibit a CAGR of 16.5% from 2018 to 2023. Out of smart garments and body sensors, wrist-wear, and leg-wear, the demand for smart-garments and body sensors will rise at the fastest pace in the coming years. This will be because of the increasing collaboration among various fitness, fashion, and leading technology developing companies around the world.
Geographically, North America recorded the highest sales of wearable fitness trackers during the last few years. This was because of the existence of several industry players such as Fitbit Inc., Apple Inc. and Fossil Group Inc., huge incidence of chronic diseases, and the large-scale adoption of fitness trackers for monitoring health and fitness by the people residing in the region. Additionally, the surging healthcare expenditure of the regional countries also contributed toward the huge sales of these devices.
On the other hand, in the forthcoming years, the demand for these trackers is expected to surge sharply in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. This will be because of the existence of local industry players, availability of affordable fitness tracker devices, increasing usage of fitness trackers because of the growing incidence of chronic diseases, soaring disposable income of people, and the surging number of e-shoppers and internet users in the region.
Hence, it can be said without any hesitation that the sales of wearable fitness trackers will shoot up in the upcoming years, primarily because of the growing public awareness about health and fitness, increasing demand for health monitoring devices, and the surging geriatric population all over the world.