Samsung Confirms Smart Watch as Apple War Moves to Wrist
March 19th, 2013 by Mark Spoonauer, LAPTOP Editor in
Chief
As fears mount that the smartphone market has become too
saturated, a Samsung executive says the time has come to build a smart watch.
If you think Samsung has concocted a wearable device just to counter the
rumored Apple iWatch, the executive VP
of Samsung’s mobile business, Lee Young Hee, wants you to know that the company
“has been preparing the watch product for so long.”
The Samsung exec also told Bloomberg that Samsung is “working
very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and
the watch is definitely one of them.” Samsung just recently introduced its
first wearable gadget for 2013 in the S Band, a Fitbit-like wristband that will
sync with the S Health application in the upcoming Galaxy S4 smartphone. A
Samsung smart watch, however, would be able to do much more than tracks steps
taken and calories burned.
According to a separate Reuters report, the Samsung smart
watch will perform many of the tasks of the smart phone, although the source
wouldn’t elaborate. If other smart phone watches on the market are any guide,
such as the Martian Watch and I’m Watch, we would expect the Samsung device to
make calls, offer some fitness functions, as well as deliver news and social
updates at a glance. It’s also possible that Samsung will court developers to
make apps for its watch, which could help the brand be even less reliant on
Google’s services.
Meanwhile, Apple’s watch is said to offer many of the
same features, with Bloomberg adding that the iWatch could also let you check
your map coordinates and monitor your heart rate.
Given that the stocks of Apple and Samsung are both
struggling, the presumed hope is that forging into the smart watch category
could be a huge new growth area. In fact, Citigroup estimates the global watch
industry will generate more than $60 billion in sales in 2013. And according to
ABI Research, 485 million wearable devices will ship annually by 2018.
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