COVID-19 will Negatively Push the Industrial Wearable Market

Industrial wearables including AR glasses, VR headsets, smartwatches, and patches are mainly aimed at enhancing workplace efficiency, productivity & safety by continuous monitoring of individuals to avoid any damage to life and industrial assets in manufacturing, logistics, & mining sectors. These are constantly been tracked for fatigue & unanticipated health conditions of workers or other probably dangerous conditions at the workplace.

Before the pandemic even started the market according to a report by The Insight Partners, “The industrial wearable was expected to rise at a CAGR of 15 percent and reach US$ 8.63 Bn by the end of 2027.” A few key factors expected to impel the market growth were rising awareness and demand for safety at workplaces that are now followed by stringent labor laws.

However, now with the coronavirus outbreak has significantly impacted the growth of the market not only for this year but for upcoming years as well. COVID-19 pandemic is an unavoidable crisis that the players across the globe will have to cope up with, hence the market will experience moderate year on year growth in forthcoming years.

The massive global lockdown to avoid the spread of novel virus has disrupted the entire supply chain, also halted the activities in manufacturing and mining facilities. The only precaution known is social distancing, hence the market is facing the challenge of zero demand. And this expected to be limited in the coming years with fewer numbers of workers working at a time in any industry that will further lower the demand for wearable devices.

In addition, North America being the largest market is suffering a greater collapse in economy that will further hit the budget allocation for procurement of wearable devices of several SMEs across the country. Several major players were already making strategies to expand their footprints across North America and Europe, and both of these regions are major victims of current crisis. Some of the recent development made include:

2020: M?kuSafe successfully raised US$ 1.5 Mn as funds to further support its plans to strengthen its team as well as expand its manufacturing process. These funds were gathered from investors such as EMC Insurance Companies Next Level Ventures, and Colin Hurd.   

2020: ProGlove collaborated with Samsung Electronics to introduce a combined product solution to overcome the rising demand for wearable scanners in various industries. The combined solution comprised Samsung’s latest ruggedized smartphone for different businesses, the Galaxy XCover Pro and ProGlove’s MARK series of wearable barcode scanners, thus providing users a secure, seamless flow of information along with facilitating consistent traceability and increased user comfort.  

In a nutshell, all the small and big manufacturers thought will limit their budgets for any additional costs atleast until there is a treatment for the virus. But probably after 2020 the companies across the market will start witnessing moderate growth with millennials and generation Z taking over at maximum workspaces. This is mainly owing to their safety awareness whether it is in terms of protection against coronavirus or heavy machineries and mining related threats.