Speaking at CES 2015, Qualcomm President Derek Aberle said "it's early days [for wearables], but it's a sweet spot for Qualcomm."

He went on to explain there are similarities between the smartphone and wearable markets, and with the firm's expertise and history in the former he's confident Qualcomm will be able to tackle the key pain points for wearables.

The road to success?

Those points are the small size of the devices, the connectivity demands they have and the low power requirements for them to be truly useful - all obstacles it's overcome in the past with smartphones.

There are currently over 15 wearable devices rocking Qualcomm chips on the market, ranging from smartwatches and fitness trackers to action cameras and VR headsets and Aberle only sees that figure going one way - up.