78% of Chinese Consumers Own Wearables, But Gen X Has Privacy Concerns

Wearable tech has been seeing a huge surge in popularity all around the world, with products like the Apple Watch seeing tremendous growth in numerous countries with all things having been considered and taken into account. China is perhaps the epicenter of this new wearables craze, with 78% of Chinese consumers saying that they own some kind of wearable tech such as a smartwatch.

In spite of the fact that this is the case, there are many Chinese Gen X-ers who are hesitant about using wearable tech because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up infringing on their privacy. The Gen X cohort turned out to be the wariest of all when it comes to privacy concerns, with 27% of them explicitly saying that they don’t use wearable tech for that precise reason.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this hesitance decreases among the younger generations. For example, about 19% of Millennials cited privacy concerns as a reason for not buying a wearable tech device. The number is even lower for Gen Z, with just 10% reporting this line of reasoning.

However, it must be mentioned that privacy concerns were only cited by 15% of the overall consumer base in China as a reason for not wanting wearable tech. The biggest reason by far was that they own smartphones and feel like they don’t work all that well, with 56% of consumers citing this reason.

41% of Chinese consumers who don’t buy these products also said that they feel like they don’t need wearables. Interestingly, 33% also said that they don’t play sports and therefore don’t think that smartwatches will be useful. This indicates that Chinese consumers often conflate wearable tech with a sporty kind of lifestyle. There is also a price issue here, with 30% of people in China who avoided buying wearable tech saying that it was too expensive. That is twice the number of people who are concerned about potential violations of their online privacy.

H/T: Atlasvpn

Read next: The psychology of color in planning marketing strategies
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World