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Taiwan Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association
jump into this stream and join the competitions. There are frequent new product. The supply goes up and the
price goes down. Wearable products become more popular. Quantified life is new way of living. In IEK 2014 annual
investigation also targets the happy elderly group, their interest on wearable products and the prices they are
willing to pay so as to have a picture how the elderly accept the quantified life nowadays.
Although there are numerous kinds of wearable devices, their functions and purposes are not quite the same.
Slowly they have diverse marketing positions. However, for the Happy Aging, wearable devices are still new
products. In Taiwan, 35% of the Happy Aging are interested in the wearable devices; in China, 23%.
Nevertheless, based on the different sports groups, in Taiwan, in addition to yoga and walking, those doing
sports show higher interest of using wearable devices than the Happy Aging in average. The most interested
sports group is jogging. 47% of the Happy Aging jogging group are interested. Most likely, sports categories
are influential upon the sports technology. What’s worth mentioning is the ball sports group, also interested in
wearable devices. In Taiwan most Happy Aging walking group show the least interest towards wearable devices. It
indicates that sports technology and product demands build on sports professionalization. Walking requires barely
no qualification and sports knowledge might not be necessary. People can walk with most kinds of shoes. Even if
walking frequency is high, there is no enhanced demands.
Taiwan
China
Jogging
47%
33%
SpeedWalking
41%
34%
Swimming
40%
31%
Ball sports
47%
32%
Yoga
35%
41%
Hiking
37%
27%
Dancing
46%
22%
Marial arts, Taichi, Gymnastics
45%
26%
Walking
34%
23%
Using fitness equipment
45%
30%
Total
35%
23%
Source from ITRI IEK (2015)