The smart ring war just got personal. Oura is deliberately letting gym rats slip away to Whoop while doubling down on a surprising new demographic: women in their early twenties. It's a calculated gamble that could redefine the $2 billion wearables market as competitors circle the Finnish company's 80% market share.
Oura just made a confession that explains everything about the smart ring wars. While Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Prince Harry sport the company's signature rings, chief commercial officer Dorothy Kilroy revealed at Toronto's Elevate conference that her fastest-growing users aren't tech billionaires or wellness executives. They're women in their early twenties.
The admission comes as the 13-year-old Finnish health tech company faces its biggest competitive threat yet. Samsung launched its Galaxy Ring directly at Oura's core market, while Ultrahuman undercuts with a no-subscription model and Whoop owns the serious athlete crowd. Each competitor promises to chip away at Oura's commanding 80% smart ring market share.
But Kilroy isn't panicking. The former Airbnb executive who joined Oura three years ago has seen this playbook before - organic growth through word of mouth that creates unshakeable user loyalty. "At Airbnb, 90% of revenue ties directly to people raving about their vacations," she explained. "At Oura, it's people raving about their sleep scores."
The strategy is working. Oura doubled revenue last year and is on track to double again in 2024, but the real kicker is retention. While other wearables struggle with low-30s retention rates after 12 months, Oura hits the high-80s. People actually keep wearing the thing.
That success built on "corporate athletes" - high-performing millennials and Gen Xers with disposable income who realized running on fumes isn't sustainable. These professionals want optimized sleep, targeted exercise, and metabolic health insights. But the demographic map is shifting in ways that reveal Oura's long-term thinking.
Young men obsessed with gains and recovery are gravitating toward Whoop, which has become the unofficial uniform of serious athletes and gym bros. The Boston-based company, also founded 13 years ago, announced blood-testing services just one day before Oura revealed its own Quest Diagnostics partnership - a timing that suggests both see the future in integrated wearable and clinical data.
