Deloitte predicts that 320m consumer health and wellness wearable devices will ship worldwide in 2022, rising to 440m units by 2024.
This comes as consumers are increasingly using smartwatches and fitness trackers alongside smartphones to track their health and wellbeing, with smart patches also becoming available off the shelf and via prescriptions.
According to Deloitte’s Digital Consumer Trends research, wearable devices saw the biggest increase in ownership out of any technology in the UK in 2021: 40% of consumers now have access to a smartwatch or fitness band, up from 31% in 2020.
Karen Taylor, research director of the Centre for Health Solutions at Deloitte, said: “As the usage of wearable devices and smart patches continues to grow, so will awareness of the benefits the devices bring to consumer health, wellbeing and potentially the care that they receive.
“As a result, we’re likely to see big tech companies, as well as healthcare professionals and start-ups, focus fiercely on wearable device innovation and investment in the two years ahead.”
Deloitte also predicts that VC firms globally will invest more than £4.5bn in semiconductor start-up companies in 2022, three times more than each year between 2000 and 2016.
Paul Lee, global head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte, said: “As VC investment in semiconductors remains at elevated levels, there will be a wider benefit brought to digital transformation ambitions.
“At a high level, heavy VC investment will, in turn, grow new kinds of innovative chips and thus, computing capabilities, potentially leading to digital transformation of the like we’ve never seen before.”
Deloitte predicts that while the semiconductor shortage will endure throughout 2022, it will be less severe than in the last 16-months, and it will not affect all chips.
While in mid-2021, customers have been waiting between 20–52 weeks for multiple types of semiconductors, causing manufacturing delays or shutdowns, by the end of 2022 lead times will be closer to 10–20 weeks and to reach equilibrium by early 2023.
Julian Rae, partner in the Deloitte Tech Foundry, said: “Rising demand for chips across almost every industry, from data centres to automotive, to healthcare, has led to this lengthy chip shortage, which has been further exacerbated by the pandemic.
“However, the end is on the horizon, with fresh investment in manufacturing capacity from chipmakers and governments helping to meet demand by 2023.”
