Christmas wearable tech boom: More than 1 million UK festive sales forecast

Samsung is predicting a festive boom for wearable tech, with UK shoppers set to spend almost £105 million on over a million different devices.

Those figures would equate to a 182% year-on-year increase for wearable Christmas sales, in a year in which Samsung has stated will see the UK's total wearable spend top £313 million.

Leading the way will be fitness trackers, according to Samsung's report, with 475,000 units expected to be shifted over the holiday season. This will be followed by health care products (317,000) and then smartwatches (156,600).

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It's the last of these genres that Samsung obviously cares about the most - due to its plethora of Gear smartwatches that are available to buy - and it's also the area that's seeing the biggest explosion in popularity with 2013 to 2014 sales figures expected to show a mammoth 667% increase.

“The wearables market has exploded over the past 12 to 18 months with some incredibly exciting and innovative products entering the market," said Andy Griffiths, president of Samsung UK & Ireland.

"As the benefits wearable technology can offer become better understood, it is natural that the sales within this sector will grow. At Samsung, we are passionate about bringing to market products that enhance peoples' lives and hope that as we continue to innovate in the exciting wearables space that our products will continue to excite and engage people.”

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Early this month Juniper Research published a report predicting that worldwide wearable tech industry would increase from 27 million device shipments in 2014, to a whopping 116 million in 2017. It also stated that by the end of 2019, there will be 100 million smartwatch users worldwide.