Huawei Technologies launched its Huawei Watch in Britain, directly challenging Apple's smartwatch. (Photo : www.macedoniaonline.eu)
Chinese tech company Huawei launched on Wednesday, Nov. 4, its high-end smartwatch and wearable products in Britain, directly challenging the Apple Watch, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The Huawei Watch, one of the most expensive smartwatches that run on Google's Android Wear operating system, arrived in Britain two months after being launched in the United States.
Huawei's wearable product costs between 289 pounds and 599 pounds, depending on the style, according to the company.
The smartwatch measures 42 mm in diameter and is encased in a cold-forged stainless steel frame. It has a fully circular 1.4-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED display, which is coated in scratch-proof sapphire crystal.
The report said that the launching was part of Huawei's efforts to expand and sell more products into major markets outside of China.
According to the latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech for the third quarter of 2015, Huawei has become the second largest Android brand in European Union's big five markets, namely, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
The report, however, said that when it comes to the wearables, many consumers will still have to be convinced that they need the products, especially in major markets like the United States.
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, which specializes in monitoring and analyzing consumer behavior, observed that the wearables market is still in its infancy, since only 3 percent of the U.S. population aged 16 and up own a smartwatch or a smartband.
The data was based on a survey conducted in late August on 11,000 consumers, the report added.
Among the non-owners of smartwatch interviewed, 20 percent were not sure what these devices were, and 11 percent had never heard of them, the survey showed.
"Considering the poor job vendors have done thus far in defining the smartwatch category, it is surprising that 52 percent of those interviewed were able to identify what these devices are: something you wear like a watch, and that let you runs apps," Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said.
Kantar noted that despite the numbers, manufacturers, ecosystem owners and developers see the potential and opportunities ahead in the wearables market.
