While IDC sees 42% annual growth for smartwatches through 2019, the market will probably only reach 88 million smartwatches shipped in 2019 — a small fraction of the overall smartphone market.
Part of the problem with judging the smartwatch market is that so many people expected Apple, especially, to see big smartwatch successes like it had with its iPhones. But Llamas and Ubrani noted that even Apple's first iPhone didn't have all the features that later generations had, which led to escalating sales.
"It's going to take a couple of generations for smartwatches to catch on, with better sensors and batteries," Ubrani said. "Most important, the smartwatch developers aren't there yet."
James Moar, an analyst at Juniper Research, said the future is iffy for smartwatches in a business context. "With many smartwatch apps focused on productivity, there will be some use for it in the business world, but the growth won't be huge. Price is a factor … but even at the right price, the benefits aren't particularly clear for business."
Red Hat released its own mobile business survey on Wednesday that was more upbeat. In a survey of IT decision makers at 200 large private sector businesses in the U.S. and Western Europe, it found that 90% plan to increase their mobile app development investments in 2016. The survey, conducted for Red Hat by Vanson Bourne, didn't specifically ask about smartwatch apps, just the overall category of mobile apps.