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Privacy and trust: Microsoft faced trust issues last year, notably with its ill-received Recall activity tracker. With these advanced abilities, the company is trying to emphasize user control. Microsoft said that users can decide which types of information Copilot remembers or opt out of the memory feature entirely. Copilot doesn鈥檛 use chat data or prompts for AI training.

The news: Apple delaying its AI-enhanced Siri voice assistant could push back plans to release smart home and wearable services and devices. The change affects a wider Apple Intelligence rollout and raises doubts about Apple鈥檚 ability to compete with Google and Amazon in AI products. The reason for the delay? Apple鈥檚 executives found the features didn鈥檛 work as advertised in their internal testing.

The bigger picture: Google Wallet previously added tap to pay support for its kid-focused Fitbit Ace LTE through partnerships with Greenlight and Acorns. And it鈥檚 not the only mobile wallet to launch kid- and teen-oriented payment features. Apple Cash Family lets parents load money into their children鈥檚 accounts and limit who they can send money to. Apple Card also has a family feature.

Only 28% of consumers have bought or plan to buy a wearable, and just 27% are considering video game consoles. The interest in buying phones and computers now is unsurprising, considering that major companies like Apple, Google, Huawei, and Xiaomi manufacture or source those items from China.

Ownership of wearable technology lagged in Indonesia. For both smart wristbands (5.3%) and smartwatches (16.0%), the country ranked last in the region. Malaysia. Malaysia鈥檚 desktop/laptop/tablet usage (3:39 daily) led the region. Mobile device usage was higher at 4:40. This places Malaysia at No. 3 in the region, 27 minutes above the regional average.

The largest YoY change was a 3.6-percentage-point increase in smartwatch ownership. This growth brought smartwatch adoption to 31.1%, surpassing the regional average of 28.1% and indicating increasing interest in wearable technology. Portugal demonstrated the second-highest social media usage rate in Western Europe, with 99.2% of respondents on social media platforms.

Smartwatches, another wearable technology, had a 26.1% penetration rate, up 2.8 percentage points YoY. VR headset ownership was still niche at 4.7%, a decline of 0.9 percentage points YoY. This put China at No. 21 out of 49 countries globally for VR adoption. Smartphone ownership in China was nearly universal at 97.4% (ranking No. 23 among GMI countries).

Ownership of wearable technology in Japan ranked last globally. This was the case for smart wristbands (2.9%) and smartwatches (11.9%). Game console ownership in Japan ranked in the middle of the pack (No. 23) globally. The country鈥檚 unusually high ranking is likely due to the presence of powerhouse domestic manufacturers, including Nintendo and Sony. South Korea. Time Spent With Media.

Key stat: Omnia's unveiling comes as consumers are hitting peak adoption rates for health-related smart devices, including wearables. 80 million Americans currently use a health-focused smart wearable, and we project 90 million to use one by 2028. Our take: We鈥檙e skeptical of consumers鈥� appetite for Omnia鈥檚 (or any) smart mirrors.

Meanwhile, competition is taking shape: Google and Samsung鈥檚 mixed-reality consortium can spin up viable competing wearables within the year. Unlike Meta, both companies have smartphones, mobile apps, and an Android XR developer ecosystem they can lean on to accelerate adoption. The ubiquity of smartphones makes AR experiences widely accessible through built-in cameras and screens.

Expanding into robotics risks further straining Meta鈥檚 resources beyond AR/VR wearables. Meta, which gained its AR/VR expertise by acquiring Oculus, could opt to partner or buy robotics startups to leapfrog the competition, but that would also add market pressure to succeed in an all-new segment.

This report highlights key trends at a global level, including time spent figures that show a state of global 鈥減eak media,鈥� increased smart TV ownership, Gen Z鈥檚 embrace of influencer content, and smart device ownership. Key Question: How do consumer habits and media consumption patterns compare around the world?

Glasses galore: As we predicted, smart glasses were everywhere at CES, and we expect them to be the Next Big Thing in wearables. Glasses far outnumbered smart rings or other wearable devices at the show. Here are some of the new entries:.

Drugs, apps and wearables, and holistic treatments for the condition accounted for a global market worth $17.7 billion in 2024 that鈥檚 forecasted to reach $27.6 billion by 2033, per WHAM. Autoimmune diseases. Some 80% of those with rheumatoid arthritis are women and the market for autoimmune disorder medications is massive.

The Ministry of Commerce received 10.79 million subsidy applications for electronic devices between January 20 and January 23 after the government expanded the program to include mobile phones, tablets, and smartwatches.

By 2026, nearly half of US households will use smart devices鈥攆rom lights to locks to appliances. Here鈥檚 how advertisers can capitalize on connectivity enabled by Matter, the newly launched interoperability protocol.

The news: Google started offering 鈥渧oluntary exit鈥� buyouts for US-based employees working within its Platforms and Devices business, which includes Android, Pixel, Fitbit, Chrome, and Nest. The buyouts don鈥檛 coincide with future product roadmaps or affect Search, AI, or Google Cloud business units, per 9to5Google.

Smart devices are incorporating advanced AI features, aiming to become more intuitive assistants. This summer, major tech companies鈥擜pple, Samsung, Microsoft鈥攂egan to unveil genAI capabilities in earnest for devices like smartphones, PCs, and wearables. It remains to be seen whether these will fundamentally change how consumers interact with technology in their daily lives.

Smart glasses were a dominant trend at this year's CES, where they far outnumbered other wearable devices like smart rings. The many devices shown this year did everything from live translation to AR display to capturing images/video. But as the tech and adoption evolves, this wearable tech has the opportunity to play an outsized role in retail media.

Smartwatch ownership was lowest in Latin America, the only category where the region lags. Some 22.7% of respondents own a smartwatch, 9 percentage points behind the global leader, North America. Brazil. Time Spent With Media. Daily time spent with mobile devices in Brazil (5:11) was among the highest globally.

Software support for its 3-year-old Car Thing smart device for vehicles ended in December due to a lack of demand, rendering the product nonoperational. Spotify might have a better shot when facing EU regulators than Amazon due to its smaller size and European roots.

Most smart wearable users in the US are between ages 18 and 44, but the fastest-growing audience is older.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss what to make of the deal between the writers and studios, whether we'll soon be interacting with synthetic social networks, if AI can really improve customer service, wearable AI technology potentially replacing the smartphone, how much people have saved for retirement, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our director of reports editing Rahul Chadha, director of forecasting Oscar Orozco and analyst Max Willens.