CollegeXP Reveals That When It Comes to Wearable Tech, University Students Already Own or Plan to Buy Fitness Trackers

RHINEBECK, N.Y., Sept. 13, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Phoenix Marketing International's CollegeXP (http://bit.ly/2cmjZ8b), a proprietary collection of mobile and online research methodologies to reach the difficult college market, today revealed interesting data around how college students are using fitness trackers. While 32% of college students own an activity tracker or smartwatch, 16% say they plan to acquire one in the next 3 months. Some of the key reasons for using fitness trackers included monitoring fitness goals, weight loss and using social media to share success. This research comes just in time for back to school.

"Fitness trackers continue to be a popular workout and social interaction tool on college campuses," said John Schiela, President of Phoenix Converged Technology & Media. "This is not surprising given that a number of the students surveyed stated that they are not satisfied with their current weight. We also learned that a large majority of students are exercising four or more times a week. These results represent a unique opportunity for the wearable tech industry to specifically target this market of active young individuals."

The key drivers to product acquisition are price, accuracy and battery life with college students. About 20% of fitness tracker users report their primary motive for use to be weight loss, while about 50% of users report their primary reason is for tracking their fitness goals and staying motivated. Social media also plays a big role in fitness tracker usage with approximately half of the students surveyed saying they use or plan to use their fitness tracker to compete with friends and/or share their success goals via the social interaction capabilities.

Some of the other key stats uncovered in this research include:
42% of females are not satisfied with current weight compared to 18% of males
42% of males exercise daily while 21% of females exercise daily
56% of college students reporting exercising four or more times a week

"Another interesting stat uncovered in this research was related to sleep," continued John. "15% of students told us that they get less than 20 hours of sleep a week, 26% of students get less than 30 hours a sleep a week, and 43% of students get less than 40 hours of sleep a week. Exploiting the sleep tracking feature via messaging to students and their parents, maybe a huge market opportunity for the industry."

About CollegeXP
Results are based on our latest CollegeXP research study of over 1000 current students. This study was comprised of traditional online research as well as our mXP (mobile experience) platform. The study focused on key drivers for selecting a college/university, college/university performance, and ways in which students spend their free time.

CollegeXP is one of many offerings via mXP, Phoenix's suite of mobile products that include best-in-class market research methods, vertical industry expertise, and advanced analytics. mXP products provide access to an extensive network of on-the-go consumers, providing marketers with insights quickly and allowing for accelerated delivery of decision-making information and answers to business critical questions.

For more information on the CollegeXP product contact Marisa Katz (marisa@larkinvolpatt.com).