Best Wearable Tech Stocks of 2024

Gyms are again crowded as people are booking their summer holidays and trying to get back into shape in time for hitting the beach.

It’s also the time of year to put a spotlight on wearable tech stocks because of the growth of various fitness and sports trackers. According to a report by Fortune Business Insights, the size of the global fitness tracker market will grow from $53.94 billion in 2023 to $182.90 billion by 2030.

A Closer Look at the Top Wearable Tech Stocks to Buy

Let’s take an in-depth look at the top wearable tech stocks that investors are looking at this year:

1. Apple – Best Wearable Tech Stock in 2024 for Dependable Growth

The company’s stock got a jolt when it launched its virtual-reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro. Apple is touting this addition to its smart wearables as a spatial computer that can blend digital content with the physical world. It’s seen as the company’s biggest launch of a new product since it began selling Airpods in 2016.

Apple also plans to expand its offerings for its Apple Fitness+, a workout video streaming platform that requires a subscription to use and can be used in connection with its Apple Watches.

The company said that the service was adding a workout program called Strength, Core and Yoga for Golfers, as well as a new meditation theme. This isn’t a small point because the company reported an all-time high for subscription revenue in the second fiscal quarter of $23.9 billion, up 14% year over year.

Apple was already seeing increased earnings, thanks to higher margins from its software services, including those connected to its wearable devices. In its fiscal second quarter, the company reported revenue of $90.8 billion, down 4% year over year, and earnings per share (EPS) of $1.53, slightly down compared to the same period a year earlier. Those numbers don’t include sales of the company’s latest Apple Watch, its first carbon-neutral model.

In the short term, sales for the company’s Apple Watches will likely show a decline because the International Trade Commission issued a sales ban of the company’s Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 late last year in a patent infringement case with medical device maker Masimo. On Dec. 27, the US Court of Appeals issued a stay of the ban, so for now those two models are selling again.

The company has increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years (accounting to stock splits), including a raise of 4% this year to $0.25, equaling a yield of around 0.54%.

2. Alphabet – Best Wearable Tech Stock Using AI To Trim Costs

Most of Alphabet’s revenue is still search-related, but Google Cloud and YouTube also drive a lot of revenue. The company is investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) and that will help it maintain its edge in search. Alphabet will likely find uses for AI in all of its Google Pixel products, including its Pixel smart watches.

In the first quarter, Alphabet reported that sales rose 15%, year over year, to $80.54 billion and net income rose 57% from the same period a year earlier to $23.66 billion.

Despite those stellar numbers, the company has a major reorganization under way as it plans to cut back on its advertising sales team, cutting as many 30,000 jobs as it relies more on artificial intelligence to automate ad purchasing.

It will be interesting to see how the company’s decision to phase out third-party cookies on its Chrome browser will affect advertising sales. It’s worth noting that Alphabet will then hold control of the data collected from its browser and that could strengthen the moat around the most-used search engine.

3. Garmin – Best Pure-Play Wearable Technology Stock

Garmin operates in five segments: fitness, outdoor, aviation, marine, and automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM), and many of them involve wearable technology. In fitness and outdoor, the company offers both GPS-enabled smartwatches for fitness and for golf, but it also has heart-rate monitors, dive watches, and other wearable devices.

Some of the newer features on the smartwatches include nap detection that tracks and logs naps and a person’s sleep environment, skin temperature detection, which can point out potential illness, and a daily summary on how much energy a person uses in a day.

In the first quarter, the company posted record revenue of $1.38 billion, up 20% year over year, and EPS, adjusted for non-recurring items, of $1.42, up 39% compared to the same period a year earlier. Four of the company’s five segments saw sales growth, led by auto OEM and fitness, up 58% and 40%, respectively.

The company this year raised its quarterly dividend to $0.75 from $0.73, and it brings the yield to around 1.83%.

4. Xiaomi – Returning to Growth in China

Xiaomi makes everything from refrigerators to TVs, and soon, electric vehicles. It has said it plans to launch the Xiaomi SU7 Series electric sedan in the first half of this year. It’s a major competitor for Apple in the consumer electronics and wearable technology industry, chipping away at its market share.

It’s the third-largest shipper of cell phones worldwide, but it also has a significant presence in smartwatches and earbuds for fitness and other uses. The company, in September, launched the Xiaomi Watch 2 Pro, which is powered by Google’s Wear OS app. The company is making significant inroads in smart wearables, such as its smartwatches because it keeps prices down.

Xiaomi got back to revenue growth in the third quarter of 2023 after being stagnant for a year and a half due to China’s COVID-19 lockdowns, and revenue increased again in the fourth and then the first quarter. Revenue in the first three months of 2024 reached a record 75.5 billion yuan ($10.4 billion), a 27% increase year over year, and its adjusted net profit doubled from a year earlier to 6.5 billion yuan.

5. Catapult Group – Serving a Strong Niche Market in Sports Wearables

Catapult is having a big impact for a relatively small company with only 400 employees. Its wearable sports technology is used by more than 3,425 elite teams in 137 countries, including major pro sports leagues such as the Premier League, the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball.

The company is growing revenue from its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and its host of hardware – including its Vector Pro and Vector Core and Catapult One player tracking devices. In the NFL, the devices can be paired with the company’s smart football, which uses a chip.

Combined, the data gives more useful metrics on all kinds of information on the practice field, using GPS and local positioning system (LPS) tracking, heart-rate monitoring and inertial sensors. Its software app is used by most college football teams to host and exchange game film and practice film.

In the fiscal 2024 that ended in March, Catapult had revenue of $100 million, up 20% year over year. Though the company isn’t profitable yet, it generated positive free cash flow (FCF) of $4.6 million, compared to a FCF loss of $21.6 million in fiscal 2023.

Where to Buy Wearable Tech Stocks

In order to buy wearable technology stocks, you need an online broker that offers trading in these stocks. In particular, you need a broker like eToro that offers trading on exchanges around the world since many wearable tech companies are based outside the US.

At eToro, you can buy shares of Apple, Alphabet and Garmin in the US, plus you can also buy Xiaomi shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. eToro also carries stocks on the Australian Stock Exchange, so trading in Catapult could be coming soon.

No matter where in the world the shares you want to buy are located, you’ll pay no commission to trade stocks and ETFs at eToro. The broker also has no deposit fee (except for non-USD deposits) and requires only a $100 minimum deposit (country dependent) to open an account, making it one of the most competitive platforms on the market.

eToro helps you monitor the best wearable technology stocks with a user-friendly trading platform, market news headlines, and a sentiment indicator that shows what other traders are buying or selling.

The eToro platform also includes a handy copy trading feature that allows you to track and mimic other more experienced traders on the platform.

If you want to invest more broadly in the tech industry, eToro carries hundreds of tech stocks from around the world. It also has tech ETFs like the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

eToro is regulated in the U.S. by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Furthermore, the broker is regulated in the US, UK and Europe.

References

• https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/fitness-tracker-market-103358
• https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51461523
• https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-vision-pro-available-in-the-us-on-february-2/
• https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/27/24016684/apple-watch-on-sale-again-import-sales-bans-paused
• https://dataconomy.com/2024/01/03/report-google-ai-layoffs-2024-to-hit-30000-jobs/
• https://www.mi.com/global/discover/article?id=3066
• https://www.catapult.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1H-FY24-ASX-Announcement-Final.pdf

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