Qualcomm joined with more than 60 companies to address challenges in the wearables industry, seeking to accelerate the development and commercialisation of products and services.

The company unveiled the Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Programme, which aims to foster collaboration between device manufacturers, service providers, platform providers, and independent hardware and software vendors.

Verizon, Vodafone Group, Arm and Oppo are among the companies already on board.

Qualcomm stated the programme aimed to address “daunting challenges” in the wearables industry with a view to lowering development costs and time to market for new products.

Vodafone global products and services director Phil Patel described wearable devices as “a part of the fabric of the next generation of telecommunications” and talked up the role of collaboration to the sector’s success.

The programme is also open to developers of services based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear platforms.

Qualcomm pledged to increase investments and launch new platforms in the next 12 months.

IDC figures showed shipments of wearables hit 105 million in Q1, the first time the sector broke the 100 million mark in a single quarter.