Wearable Medical Devices are autonomous, non-invasive devices that perform specific Medical Functions such as managing treatment of chronic diseases or monitoring vital signs of human body. A wearable medical device incorporates capabilities such as wireless data transmission, real time feedback and assessment and so on.
Many products with such capabilities are currently commercially available in the market and are targeted at health marketers, researchers, health conscious individuals, and athletes. The current generation of Wearable Medical Devices mostly relies on user intervention to record data that is processed offline later on.
However, the Next Generation of Wearable Devices is expected to perform functions beyond recording and aim to offer patient monitoring with real-time assessment and feedback. Wearable medical devices offer various solutions to both, patients as well as physicians or health care providers.
These Solutions can primarily be classified into three categories, namely:
- Therapeutic Purposes or Disease Management
- Monitoring & Feedback, and
- Assisting in Rehabilitative Processes
During the forecast period of 2015-2020, the market is projected to grow remarkably at 21.3% to generate revenue of $41.3 Billion by 2020.
In 2014, North America held the largest share in the global wearable medical devices market. This can be ascribed to increasing concern about personal health, growing elderly care market and increasing government funding. The European WMD market accounted for 30% of the overall revenue, followed by the APAC region. The growing economies in APAC have led to increased disposable income among customers thus propelling the wearable medical device market. ROW region accounted for 3% share in the global WMD market in 2014.
Dominant Players in the Wearable Medical Devices Market as of 2014 include:
- Zephyr Technology CORP.
- Omron Healthcare, INC.
- Basis Science
- Sotera Wireless, INC., and
- Polar Electro Oy.
Though these companies have a dominant position in the market, there are a few companies such as Philips Healthcare, ResMed, Fitbit, Inc, giving stiff competition to the top players with their innovative product designs.
