Have I ever been wrong about these things?
The forecast is strong, the future bright—what could possibly go wrong? Look at the numbers. How can this miss, everyone wants one.
Now that the latest gold rush fever has hit the industry with IoT, wearables, and VR, let’s take pause and look back a few years and the some of the more recent goldrushes.
- 3D TV were forecast to reach 3.2 million global shipments in 2010 and 91 million in 2014.
- The future of 3DTVs: 157.7 million sales are forecast for 2017.
- The popularity of 3D TV continues on, the 3D TV is expected to surpass 33 million units in 2012 to account for 13% of the overall market and exceed 83 million units in 2014 to account for about 31% of overall TV market.
- Unit sales of Glass are expected to climb sharply, to 21 million units in annual sales by year-end 2018.
- The global market for smart glasses could amount to almost 10 million units from 2012 through 2016.
- Shipments of smart glasses may rise to as high 6.6 million units in 2016.
Well, maybe those forecasters (who, by the way, still have their jobs) and their clients were a little too enthusiastic, maybe a little too young. Maybe they were making a forecast driven by client needs rather than re-ality or experience or (heaven forbid) some actual hardnosed research.
But that was then and this, well this, this is today. Today we are really smart, smarter, and today we really know what’s coming. We got it this time, no, really. Check it out, my gold rush friends.
- The market for enterprise AI systems will increase from $202.5 million in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2024—Deep Learning will be the breakout technology.
- Sales of hybrid devices will soar in 2015. The PC market may be down worldwide, but the future is bright for two-in-one notebooks, and convertible tablets and will rise 77% in 2015.
- Smart wearable shipments are expected to hit 33 million in 2015; take off next year.
- 72.1 million wearable devices will be shipped in 2015; shipment volumes are expected to experience a CAGR of 42.6% over the five-year forecast period, reaching 155.7 million units in 2019.
- Augmented/Virtual Reality is expected to hit $150 billion, disrupting mobile by 2020.
- VR HMDs are forcast to hit 25 million by 2020.
Holy cow, Batman, we’ve got to get in on these new gold rushes before all the land sites are gone.
Why do you realize that, at the beginning of last year, there were fewer than 10 VR HMDs on the market, and today there are more than 40? Do you have any idea how many companies are introducing wearable devices? And have you even thought about all those IoT things out there and yet to come? Look, if you want your shares prices to go up, you’ve got to be in on this—this is where the growth is, baby. Have I ever been wrong?
And so the record with the scratch in it jumps back to the beginning, and the tired old song plays again. And probably a good number of you reading this don’t even know what the hell that last sentence means— record with the scratch????
The path to sustainable business success lies somewhere between hype and humility, or perhaps I should say reality.
Fitbit raised more than $730 million, giving it a valuation of about $4.1 billion. Last year the company made $132 million on revenue of more than $745 million. So you can see, a $4.1 billion valuation makes perfect sense. Right?
I can’t remember being this excited since, since … well, since 2001.