Samsung Launches the Wearable Smart-Glove Category

Today, Samsung and HTC showed the first wearable smart gloves.   forecastjoy.com is forecasting that wearable smart-glove annual shipments will pass 300 million units in 2100 and will be commonplace in homes and business around the world.

However, because new software apps will be required to make use of these products, the smart-glove market will develop slowly with only negligible sales until 2020 when 100,000 smart gloves will be sold.  After 2020, the smart-glove market will gain momentum until, after 80 years of steady growth, sales will top 300 million units in 2100.  PCs required only 35 years to top 300 million units per year; however, the smart glove market will develop more slowly than did PCs because of the complexities involved in fitting users diverse requirements in smart glove sizes, styles and colors not to mention applications and capabilities.

By 2100 the smart-glove market will have reached 76% penetration of the 1 billion hands potential market with 759 million smart gloves in use.

Assumptions for Forecast Model of Wearable Smart Gloves Using the Bass Diffusion Model

This forecast makes the following assumptions:

• The potential market for smart gloves is 1 billion hands.  This seems reasonable since there about 7 billion people in the world and the vast majority have two hands making an earthly universe of 14 billion hands.  Since there are now more than 1 billion PCs in use worldwide, it does not seem a stretch to predict that eventually there will be 1 billion smart gloves in use — after all there are twice as many hands as there are people.
• The replacement rate for smart gloves will be about like that of smartphones — an average of every two years with the distribution: 25% after one year, 50% after two years and 25% after three years.
• The penetration of smart gloves will develop at about half the speed of PCs and cellphones because smart gloves are not one-size-fits all devices.

Rumor: Microsoft Will Give the Finger OS to All Its Competitors for Use in Smart Gloves

At Build 2014, Microsoft will announce the Finger operating system for smart gloves, which it will give to Apple, Google, Samsung and pretty much anyone else who wants it.  Microsoft has actually been practicing giving the Finger to these companies for years, so this is no surprise.

Download Bass Model of this Forecast

Download Excel Model of Wearable Smart Gloves Forecast Using the Bass Diffusion Model

Wishing You Forecast Joy on this April 1st