Huge expansion for wearable technology industry

The wearable technology industry could be worth more than $34bn by 2020.

With celebrities featuring in commercials wearing technology such as Beats Studio headphones and the Apple Watch Edition, wearable technology is becoming truly fashionable, although the price tag still limits spending on devices to relatively high-end consumers.

Functionality may not be the primary reason for some wearable purchases; luxury branded limited edition products are still a key attraction for consumers.

Marketers have been quick to recognise that consumers want to show off the products just as much as they want to actually use them.

Marques Brownlee, a YouTube technology reviewer says,"Perceived value is really the name of the game that Beats Electronics is winning. The more people think your product is worth, the more they're willing to pay for it. And with the celebrities wearing them all over the place all the time, the design, the fashion statement it makes that's why they're able to charge $300 for these when I'd be willing to bet they cost less than $150 to make."

The wearable computing market is segmented into fitness and wellness, medical and healthcare, enterprise and industrial, infotainment, and other applications.  Research by marketsandmarkets.com indicates that the infotainment sector is expected to grow at the highest value of $16.7bn by 2020.

Asia-Pacific heads up the growth of the four regions in the wearable computing market, mainly because of the rapidly expanding Chinese economy.