The year of 2013 wasn’t exactly the year of the smartwatch, although we did see some valiant efforts from Samsung in the Galaxy Gear, but come 2014 that might be an entirely different story. According to the IDC and their strategy analysts, they believe that 2014 could be the year of the smartwatch in which we can expect that smartwatch sales to grow by a whopping 500%! The report states, “According to our Wearable Device Ecosystems (WDE) service, global smartwatch sales will grow almost +500% in 2014. We expect technology heavyweights — such as Samsung, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Google — to expand the market significantly in coming years. The United States, Western Europe, China and developed Asia will be the leading territories to target for volume and value.”As it stands there are numerous companies who have been rumored to be getting into the smartwatch business themselves. These companies includes Nokia, LG, Sony (again), and how could we forget the tech giants such as Apple and Google as well. So far the smartwatches we’ve seen are somewhat clunky and all pretty much offer the same features as the next, such as alerting the wearer of incoming calls and text messages, displaying time, using it as a fitness accessory, and etc., so it it will be interesting to see what companies such as Apple and Google have to offer in the wearable tech department that will set themselves apart from the competition.
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