Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Wearables spur on health consumerization

The wearables market for health and wellness is on the cusp of a significant stride forward, thanks to modern wearable technologies that provide the means to collect and manage health and wellness data in a more convenient and automated fashion. Parks Associates data shows growth in several wearables categories, including digital pedometers and GPS watches.

Wearable devices and their apps offer new means for consumers to manage their health and wellness. Wearables have emerged for fitness tracking, medical condition management, wellness monitoring, and personal safety assistance, among other use cases. New form factors like earbuds, headbands, patches, and smart fabrics enable the collection of new forms of data and push the use case horizon even further.

Parks Associates wearable device research shows U.S. consumers are interested in the benefits that wearable devices provide for health use cases:

  • 29% of U.S. broadband households own one connected health device, and 12% own multiple connected health devices.
  • More than 60% of future smart watch buyers plan to use a smart watch to track fitness.
  • 35% of U.S. smart watch owners are willing to share data from their device for a health insurance discount. 

From the article "Wearables spur on health consumerization" by Jennifer Kent.

Previously In The News

The probability of success for ESPN+

Parks Associates analyst Brett Sappington agreed that it will be compelling for some customers, particularly due to content that won’t be available elsewhere like MLS games and some of the college spo...

Synamedia sees pay TV driving growth for 3-4 years before IPO

Media research firm Magrid has found that 26% of millennials share passwords for video streaming services, while Parks Associates predicts that in 2021, $9.9 billion of pay-TV revenues and $1.2 billio...

DirecTV Now to hike prices as content fees rise across industry

Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates, said price increases are a leading reason why viewers cancel subscriptions. “Customers don’t like surprises that hurt their pocketbook,”...

How to tell who’s winning — and who’s losing — the streaming wars

Most companies don’t disclose quarterly churn rates, though third-party organizations such as The NPD Group and Parks Associates track cancellations through research and surveys. Data from analytics f...