Wearables market expected to rise 18.4 percent by end of 2016

IT and research firm Gartner is predicting worldwide sales of wearables to reach 274.6 million this year compared to 232 million in 2015 for an increase of 18.4 percent. The sales should generate 28.7 billion USD in revenue, of which 11.5 billion USD will be made up of smartwatches.

The adoption rate of wearables is also expected to increase by 48 percent from 2015 to 2017. Gartner's prediction is based mainly on Apple's push to cement watches as a lifestyle trend. Although smartwatches will gain in popularity, the firm believes that they will not be as ubiquitous as smartphones in the foreseeable future.

Other wearables such as bracelets, intelligent clothing, sports watches, and other activity trackers will continue to grow in sales as well. Gartner believes that these wearables will eventually adapt certain smartwatch features including mobile payments and security.

Meanwhile, worldwide tablet sales were down for all of 2015 and are expected to shrink further by the end of this year. The notebook market has been stagnant as well as the introduction of Skylake was unable to significantly boost demand for newer models. Additionally, most users instead opted to simply upgrade their existing PCs to Windows 10 via Microsoft's limited time promotion.

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