Brits, Americans find wearables useful, but privacy concerns remain

Apple Watch, one of the leading wearable tech brands, made it to our February edition of the Biggest Brand Movers in both the US and the UK. That served as a cue for us to peek into Profiles data to uncover some key attitudes towards wearable tech in general.

While wearables have evolved to offer consumers a host of varied digital features on their wrist, health and fitness tracking features remain front and centre of marketing pitches. About six in ten consumers in the US (58%) and Britain (61%) feel that “wearable devices can encourage people to be more healthy”.

Splitting the data through the generation filter reveals, somewhat expectedly, that younger generations in both markets are more likely to feel that way. About three-quarters of Gen Zers (74%) and Millennials (73%) in Britain agree that wearables can encourage a healthier lifestyle, compared to three in five Gen Z Americans (62%) and two-thirds of Millennials (66%) there. A half of Baby Boomers in the US (50%) and Britain (49%) also see the potential for wearables to motivate consumers to be healthy.

While a large portion of consumers are convinced of one of the primary use cases for wearables, a sizeable chunk of them remains wary over privacy concerns. Three in five Americans (58%) and nearly half of all Brits (45%) say they are concerned that “the data from a wearable will be used by companies to learn things about my lifestyle”.

These concerns are shared by an almost uniform proportion of consumers from each generation.

In the US, between 53% to 59% of consumers in each generational bracket share the concern, compared to between 43% and 47% of consumers in Britain.

For the makers and marketers of wearables, addressing people’s concerns about companies peering into lifestyle data could help them win consumer trust and confidence.

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YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.