Apple’s rumored smartwatch, dubbed by the media iWatch, is a gadget nearly one in five people would buy, a study by ChangeWave Research has it.
With five percent respondents ‘Very Likely’ to buy an iWatch if and when it becomes available and an additional fourteen percent ‘Likely’ to purchase it, a total of nineteen percent of the 1,713 surveyed North Americans would consider a purchase.
Data bodes well for Apple as Gartner thinks the market for wearable smart electronics could be worth ten billion dollars by 2016. And if you ask analyst Katy Huberty, the iWatch could drive an incremental $10-$15 billion in revenue each year, assuming annual sales of 50 million units and an average selling price between $200 and $300…
ChangeWave Research, a service of 451 Research, found “exceptionally strong interest” in an Apple smartwatch. Compare, if you will, these numbers to a January 2010 poll by ChangeWave which indicated only eighteen percent were ready to consider the then unannounced Apple tablet.
Despite such a low score, the iPad sales went gangbusters later that year.
The research firm thinks people who expressed willingness to consider the gizmo did so due to “Apple’s track record of delivering ultra-convenient, easy to use, innovative products with a perceived cool factor.”
The survey, which was shared Friday by AppleInsider, also quotes ChangeWave’s Andy Golub as observing that “while an ‘iWatch’ doesn’t yet exist – and if it ever does it will have to live up to super high expectations – it has the potential to be another huge success for the Cupertino, Calif., manufacturer.”
Loyalty to the Apple brand is the key factor driving interest in an iWatch, with eighteen percent of ‘Likely’ buyers citing the Apple brand as the main selling point.
Sixteen percent of that group quoted the convenience of a hypothetical product and an additional fourteen percent were drawn to the “cool factor.”
Comic courtesy of Joy of Tech.
Eleven percent were interested in how the rumored gizmo would integrate and interact with other Apple products.
iDB’s own little non-scientific poll found that nearly two out of each three respondents would rather wear an iWatch than Google’s digital eyewear, the Glass.