According to the latest edition of GfK Tech Trends, new technological devices go on growing, becoming more and more popular all over the world. All the new proposals, such as smart appliances, wearable devices and augmented reality products are no more ‘strange’ products but are entering people daily life. Data say that the whole smart home market grew by 30% during the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period of the previous year, and sales value increased by 51%. Home automation and security are the areas where consumers are focusing when deciding to buy a smart appliance. It is incredible to notice that from the last quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of this year, the sector players grew of 30% in Europe, underling how much this market is promising. New technologies are more and more at the center of people life, as shown also by the trend of wearable devices that reported a growth of 29% in Europe during the first three months of 2017, while in Asia GfK recorded 10.3 million of units sold. Health & fitness trackers are still the most popular category for the wearables market both in Europe and in Asia.
As regards augmented and virtual reality, during the last quarter of 2016 a revenue of 211 million euro were generated by VR devices in Europe, with unit sales peaking during this period. 76 million euro in revenue was generated by the sales of VR head-mounts while 219 million euro derived from head-mounted displays.
