Wearables are Key Indicators for IoT Adoption
For service providers, ownership of a wearable may be a good indicator of a customer’s interest in acquiring more IoT devices.
Understanding the combinations of IoT devices their customers own will help service providers sell IoT plans and devices in a deliberate, targeted fashion. Netcracker’s recent survey of more than 1,500 U.S. consumers provides insight into which types of IoT devices consumers own. Our research demonstrates that smart phone users who also own wearables may be 40 times as likely to purchase other IoT devices as other smart phone users.
Indicated via Wearable
For service providers, ownership of a wearable may be a good indicator of a customer’s interest in acquiring more IoT devices. Though news and projections relating to wearables have been mixed in recent months, the overall market grew at least 26 percent in 2016, according to IDC.
In many cases, service providers can determine which of their customers own wearables because they provide plans to connect those devices. Wearables may be key indicators of a customer’s propensity to purchase successive IoT devices because they reflect early adoption and are not subiquitously penetrated as smart phones. The data bears out this multidevice lifestyle assumption. Our survey shows that despite the relatively nascent state of IoT device adoption, nearly 30 percent of wearables users also own a Wi-Fi connected camera (29 percent) or a connected car device (29 percent).
Inversely, owners of other IoT devices tend to own wearables. Nearly 41 percent of those who own smart thermostats, 37 percent of Wi-Fi camera owners, 36 percent of connected car owners and 37 percent of those who own personal assistant devices like Amazon’s red-hot Echo also own wearables.
Knowing that a customer owns a wearable can provide a means for service providers to segment their customer bases in order to target them for IoT plans and devices. With 23 percent of smart phone users owning wearables—not all of which are activated on service providers’ networks—there is clearly a large and rapidly growing portion of customers already engaged in the IoT lifestyle.