Here's what to make of Amazon's potential connected health play (AMZN)

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July 28, 2017 7:02 PM

Amazon has a secret team called 1492 is exploring opportunities for the company in digital health

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Amazon has a secret team called 1492 is exploring opportunities for the company in digital health, according to.

While there's no evidence that the team is currently exploring connected health devices, it's possible it could eventually do so.

This is an approach that other large tech companies are also taking — earlier this year CNBC alsoreportedthat Apple had a similar group working on non-invasive blood glucose monitoring. Amazon evidently wants to shield its efforts from public attention; it has removed all mentions of 1492 from its careers site and all employees working in the group have removed it from their Linkedin profiles.

Amazon's potential advantages in the connected health device market likely outnumber it's disadvantages.

It has the scale.
It has the underlying technologies.
But based on what we know right now, there's still a lot of work the company needs to do if it wants to enter the market.

Amazon has a potentially lucrative opportunity. Right now digital health solutions and connected health devices aren't that common — many hospitals and doctors offices still rely on decades-old machines, computers, and other technologies to power their businesses. But that's about to change — the global healthcare sector will invest $410 billion in software, hardware, and services in 2021, up from about $59 billion currently, according to Grand View Research. That means that if Amazon gets into the connected health device market soon, it's likely going to be a lucrative move since it can get a slice of the market as it scales rapidly.

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