Samsung's Gear Fit2 [Courtesy of Samsung]
The market for wearable devices such as smartwatches, smart glasses, fitness trackers, and life-logging tools has been growing fast in South Korea, one of the world's most wired countries, thanks to their convenience, government data showed.
The number of people using wearable devices connected to top three mobile carriers has tripled from 209,051 last year to 611,217 this year, according to a report from the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning.
Experts speculate that about 800,000 people are actually using wearable devices in South Korea, considering that wearable devices connected to non-3G or non-LTE networks were excluded from government data. They predict the number of wearable users will surpass one million by the end of the year.
In recent years, major smart device manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, and Apple have released a variety of smartwatches which became popular among early adopters due to their convenience. Smartwatch users receive alarms and notifications from their smartphones. Some models provide health-tracking options, providing daily work-out plans.
"Kids' Phone" is popular among parents. The watch-shaped wearable device using GPS notify parents of children's whereabouts. Life-logging tools are also catching the attention of IT fans. The little gadget with GPS and a camera in the shape of a badge takes pictures and records geographical information about users. When connected to a computer, the device sorts out and arranges photographs it had taken.
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
