Smart Watches Appeal to 30-Somethings in South Korea

Men and women in their 30s are the most likely groups in South Korea to say they will be buying a smart watch, according to August 2015 polling. Overall, about one in four consumers plan to do so.

Gallup Korea found that among 30- to 49-year-olds, men were more likely than women in South Korea to say they intended to purchase a smart watch.

Among the youngest respondents, however, women were 6 percentage points more likely to say they wanted one. The gender imbalance was nonexistent among those ages 50 to 59, and among the oldest group, men were more than four times as likely as women to say they wanted a smart watch.

Across both genders, people in their 30s were the biggest potential smart watch buyers, with 36% of women ad 37% of men in this age group interested in one.

July 2015 polling from AIP Corporation found that just 5.3% of internet users in South Korea had already purchased a wearable device of any type, including smart watches. Another 15.5% were considering buying one, either for themselves or as a gift, and 29.3% more were potentially interested. These response rates were ahead of those in Japan, but behind all the other Asia-Pacific countries surveyed.

Among the 28.4% of respondents to the AIP Corp. survey across the region who had either purchased or considered purchasing a wearable device, the main reason was that they “seem practical,” such as for sports or more generally “on the move.”