RealWear accelerates leadership position in hands-free wearable computing
The global leader in hands-free wearable computing for industry, RealWear, today announced that strong customer demand has accelerated its number one position, reporting triple (3X) year-over-year growth.
The company also announced a broad global expansion to support customers, including opening a new Customer Experience Centre in Dubai Internet City to meet growing demand for its products and services in the Middle East, and new offices in other major markets. The company has also achieved a milestone of shipping wearable devices to more than 3,000 unique enterprise customers worldwide in a wide range of industries.
The pandemic meant engineers were no longer able to travel to factories and facilities to support onsite technicians in person, RealWear quickly became the wearable device of choice for virtual, remote collaboration for troubleshooting equipment and performing quality checks, audits, inspections, plant tours, and product and factory acceptance tests (FAT). Leading collaboration companies — including Microsoft, Cisco, and Zoom — have custom-tailored their software to fully leverage RealWear’s assisted reality wearable solution that is the choice of frontline workers at some of the world’s prominent industrial brands.
Customer Demand Drives Growth
RealWear has successfully scaled its business globally to meet this customer demand, including:
- Opening a customer experience center in Dubai
- Adding local offices in the Netherlands, Singapore, Germany, UK, Japan, Australia, Korea
- Adding 24/5 global, rapid-response support, including over holidays
- Rapidly growing its sales staff in high-demand regions
- Broadening its sales channels through global distribution and resellers
“RealWear’s momentum is real and accelerating, with encouraging feedback from our customers about the transformative nature of our remote collaboration offerings for industry,” said Andrew Chrostowski, RealWear Chairman and CEO. “As a result, we’ve seen 3X our 2019 sales in 2020, with that momentum carrying into 2021. Our customers view us as the ‘gold standard’ solution to meet the daily needs of frontline workers and their management teams in key industry sectors such as Energy, Manufacturing, Food and Beverage, Automotive and Telecommunications. RealWear’s unique, fully ruggedized form factor, full-shift battery life, and unmatched relationships with Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom and a host of other leading ISV partners is driving our market leadership.”
Customer Wins Highlight Growth Momentum
Recent, highly visible customer wins in EMEA include deployments at Dutch multinational Fugro; professional services firm Marsh and McLennan; KPMG for remote audits, led by AMA; as well as with international consultancy and construction firm Mace, which was recently announced deploying Microsoft Teams on RealWear devices for façade quality checks.
According to ABI Research, from 2020-2025 smart glasses hardware unit shipments in the industrial and healthcare sectors is expected to grow globally by a factor of 12.8. Additionally, between 2020-2025, unit shipments to the top three verticals, representing key segments for RealWear — manufacturing, logistics, and energy & utilities – are projected to grow by a factor of 10.8.
New Demonstration Center in Dubai
RealWear has opened its initial physical presence in the Middle East including an onsite demonstration facility in Dubai’s Internet City, which will provide customers and partners in the region the opportunity to get ‘hands on’ with RealWear’s flagship head-mounted wearable, the HMT-1. This initial physical presence is timely, not only to meet increased customer demand, but also as Middle East businesses adapted to new ways of working to drive worker safety and productivity.
RealWear already has a thriving business in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with diverse customers spanning aerospace, insurance and oil and gas. Its growing list of clients in the region includes Marsh, and Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company, Saudi Aramco. When Saudi Aramco began using RealWear’s intrinsically safe product, HMT-1Z1, it recorded a 70% increase in safety compliance on top of a 10% improvement in workforce productivity.
