Harvest Technology Group Ltd (ASX: HTG) shares are edging higher today after the company announced an initial agreement to further develop industrial smart safety glasses. During early afternoon trade, the Harvest share price is bucking the downward trend of the wider market to trade 1.6% higher at 31.5 cents.
In comparison, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 1% to 6,883 points.
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What's driving the Harvest share price?
The Harvest share price is climbing higher following news of the company's strategic partnership with Iristick.
Based in Belgium, Iristick is a technology company focused on creating smart safety glasses for frontline and field workers. The wearables include a variety features such as dual cameras, zoom lenses, barcode scanners, voice commands, and more.
These allow a user wearing the smart glasses to receive real-time feedback from a remote expert. Potential applications include for surgeons performing operations on patients, or quality assurance personnel completing remote factory acceptance tests.
Under the agreement, Harvest will integrate its Infinity Nodestream and Wearwolf technology into Iristick's smart glasses.
Wearwolf is a software application version of the Infinity Nodestream encoding platform designed to run on wearable and smartphone devices. Wearwolf enables live, point-to-point video and communications at ultra-low bandwidths.
Successful prototype testing was conducted last month during which the Wearwolf application was combined with the Iristick software development kit. As a result, the smart glasses have commenced proof of concept trials before their launch some time in early 2021.
A proof-of-concept trial involves carrying out various tests and analyses to determine how a particular idea or concept can be turned into a commercial reality.
Management commentary
Harvest managing director Mr Paul Guilfoyle commented on the strategic partnership, saying:
We are very excited to be involved in a relationship with Iristick and look forward to our joint opportunities in the future. The synergies between our two companies are synonymous with a motivation to deliver high-quality remote communications and assistance from anywhere in the world.
We have successfully proven our Wearwolf application on multiple wearable platforms and we are confident it can be quickly adapted for use across other wearable devices. Given the expected growth in the wearables market, we are forecasting more than a 1000 new Wearwolf licenses in 2021.
Addressable market opportunity
As the world's use of technology continues to evolve, the uptake of wearable devices is growing at a rapid pace.
According to a 'Global Smart Augmented Reality Glasses Industry' study in July last year, sales of wearables are projected to reach around 31.1 million units by 2027. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 104.6%.
More specifically, the uptake of simple assisted reality glasses are forecast to reach 12.3 million units in the same timeframe, signifying a 101.9% CAGR.
About the Harvest share price
The Harvest share price has been on a strong run over the past 12 months, rewarding shareholders with gains of over 420%.
The company's shares hit a 52-week low of 4.7 cents in January last year, before roaring to an all-time high of 40.5 cents in August.
At the current Harvest share price, the company has a market capitalisation of $152 million.
