Asus is bringing its first Android Wear smartwatch to IFA next month

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Asus will unveil its first Android Wear smartwatch at IFA 2014 in Berlin next month. Asus CEO Jerry Shen revealed the news to investors at a conference in Taiwan, reports claim, and he promised the device will look better than competing wearables from rival companies.

More than 8 million smartwatches are expected to ship by the end of 2014, Canalys research indicates, and that figure will continue to grow exponentially over the next few years. By 2015, Canalys forecasts smartwatch shipments to reach 23 million units, rising to a whopping 45 million units by 2017.

It’s no wonder consumer electronics giants are scrambling to sneak a piece of the pie, then.

Shen divulged that Asus’s first watch has already been well-received by Google — which confirmed Asus as one of its first Android Wear partners during the platform’s public preview at Google I/O back in June — and that it will be affordable. However, Asus does not expect the device to have a major impact on its revenue just yet.

“We’re dreaming big about the future of wearable devices, but the dream will not come true this year or in the first half of next year because the market demand has not picked up,” Shen said.

In preparation for the market’s rise later on, however, Asus already has a second-generation Android Wear watch in development, according to Focus Taiwan. Shen would not provide specifics on either device, though, so we’ll have to wait for IFA, which kicks off September 5, to find out more.