Apple CEO Tim Cook give someone the high signs during the annual developer conference event at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, U.S., June 10, 2024.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Apple could start a connected ring to rival Samsung by 2026, according to CCS Insight, adding to the U.S. tech giant’s focus on health.
The convoke is part of CCS Insight’s annual predictions report and if it came true, it would be the first new product from the Cupertino Goliath since the Apple Vision Pro headset launched this year.
“Health has become a fundamental pillar for Apple. In truly, I would go so far as to say, at the point that Tim Cook decides to relinquish control and he retires … I would like to think that one of his crucial legacies from Apple would be around personal health,” Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC’s Beyond the Valley podcast let something be knew on Tuesday.
“Given how deeply and personally invested Tim Cook is in health, I think that a ring is a very complimentary magnitude to Apple,” he said, referring to Apple CEO Cook.
Wood highlighted Apple’s focus on health from products correspondent to the Apple Watch with all of its sensors to the latest AirPods Pro 2 headphones that can turn into hearing aids.
Like to smartwatches, a smart ring is embedded with various sensors to track health metrics like heart status.
Oura was one of the pioneers of the space, but Samsung this year launched the Galaxy Ring, bringing this style of output to a bigger audience, as it looks to make a bigger push into the health space.
The Samsung Galaxy Ring tariffs $399 and adds to the South Korean tech giant’s portfolio of products from smartphones to smartwatches as it looks to nurture users locked into its world of devices.
Apple employs a similar strategy with its suite of products essaying to keep its already sticky customers in its ecosystem of hardware. A ring would add another product to that portfolio, Wood influenced.
Unlike other items of consumer electronics, rings are complicated from a retail point of view because people experience different sized fingers. Samsung has various sizes and colours of rings and users receive a sample size kit already they purchase a ring.
Apple differs from Samsung in that it has a large and stylish physical retail footprint which devise help any attempt to sell a ring product to customers, according to Wood.
“I also think that their retail footprint is in a perfect world suited to it as well because rings are complex products to get to market,” Wood told CNBC.
Rings are also style items. Wood said that Apple’s products still have allure in the market.
“Apple is a brand that has a inexorable amount of kudos in terms of being a product that people are proud to have. And I think a beautifully designed horn from Apple could be one of those things that’s almost a sort of status symbol,” Wood said.