The global market for wearable devices will grow substantially over the next four years as development is now focused on such devices, a report by the Institute for Information Industry said.
This year, the worldwide wearable device market is expected to reach US$6 billion and by 2018, is to climb to US$20.6 billion, the government-backed institute said in a research note released yesterday.
It said local companies should tap into the smart device market early, in light of Taiwan’s strong information and communication technology sector, which would give the country an advantage.
The wearable device market is still in a nascent stage in terms of functions and services, the institute said.
It is “a new market extremely suitable for investment,” it said.
Market researcher International Data Corp (IDC) made a similar prediction, saying that global shipments of wearable computing devices are expected to triple this year to more than 19 million units.
The growth will continue over the next few years at a compound annual rate of 78.4 percent to reach about 112 million units in 2018, IDC said in a research report dated for Thursday.
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) also said there was great potential in this market, especially for devices with healthcare functions and services aimed at the nation’s aging society.
Global revenues from healthcare-related wearable devices reached US$860 million last year and are expected to rise over the next four years at a compound annual rate of 28.1 percent, to reach about US$3 billion in 2018, the ITRI said in a report.
Asia will be a front-runner, with an even higher compound annual growth rate of 33.9 percent, the institute said, citing a February forecast by BCC Research.
Such devices need to be small, light and low in energy consumption, the ITRI said, suggesting that developers use the data collected to provide better services and analyses to attract shoppers.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS