Overall, global consumers surveyed by GfK are more enthusiastic about using smartwatches for storing and sharing health information (about 46%). Among other functional features they would least likely to use it for wireless payments (35%).

Ahead of the much-anticipated launch of Apple smartwatches this September, the global market and consumer research firm GfK conducted a survey of nearly 5,000 consumers in five countries— the U.S., the U.K., Germany, South Korea and China—to find out in what ways they would use smartwatches if they had owned them.

Interestingly, most of global consumers now see the gadget primarily as a means of storing and sharing some health-related information, with China leading the enthusiastic trend with 69% of interested respondents and Germany showing the least interest in this feature.

People from all five surveyed countries are rather open to use smartwatches as a ticket in public transportation (46%) and as a secured way to store passwords to online accounts (45%).

Global customers see less value in smartwatches as potential digital ID (57% in China, 41% in the US, 20% in Germany). They are even less likely to use the gadget for payment purposes (around 35% on average.)

The survey was a part of the bigger study «Wearables: geek chic or the latest must-have consumer tech,» which can be downloaded here.