TAG Heuer, the Swiss watch manufacturer is building a smartwatch in partnership with technology giants such as Google and Intel based in U.S. The smartwatch is meant to compete with the wearables that are in the market including the Apple Watch.
TAG Heuer will be the first conventional watch manufacturer to team up with Google and this way, it will end up the options of Google teaming up with other popular brands such as Zenith and Hublot owned by LVMH.
This partnership was announced at the Baselworld watch expo earlier this week and chief of LVMH watches Jean Claude Biver said that this is one of the biggest announcements ever in the last 40 years of existence in the industry. It is claimed that this device from TAG Heuer will be the greatest connected watch launched ever.
It was announced by Google’s Android Wear Head, David Singleton that TAG Heuer is all set to look after the designing and manufacturing of the smartwatch, while Intel will handle the SoC platform and Google will look after the Android Wear platform and in developing software. This wearable is likely to be launched by the end of this year.
As per a research from Strategy Analytics, the global smartwatch market will increase to 28.1 million units by the end of this year from 4.6 million units that were sold in the last year. Of these, Apple is estimated to capture 55 percent of the market despite entering the smartwatch market quite late.
Once Apple came up with a smartwatch, a slew of Swiss based watch brands came up with electronic features and some of these watch makers include Swatch, Montblanc, Breitling and Frederique Constant. They have launched products from a messaging device that will be added to a watch strap to a gold plated watch that has a fitness tracker.
However, TAG Heuer will not manufacture its smartwatch in Switzerland as the firm is relying on Google and Intel, its partners to complete the product.
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