IDC: India's wearables market nearly doubles in Q3 with record-setting 23.8 million shipments

Despite the increasing shipping costs and other difficulties caused by the pandemic, India’s wearables market is booming - IDC reports that shipments for the July-September period nearly doubled (up 93.8%) compared to the same period last year for a total of 23.8 million units. This was a record quarter for the wearables market.

That growth was driven by two of the three major categories of wearables. Earwear remains the largest category with 18.7 million shipped and a great 77.9% year-over-year growth. Earwear includes wireless over-ear headphones, neckbands and TWS headset – the latter being the biggest sub-category with 7.4 million units shipped. TWS buds have become a high-volume, low-margin business in India with the overwhelming majority of units (86.4%) costing $50 or less.

Brand BoAt grew compared to last year and now controls nearly half the market, while Realme managed to edge out OnePlus for the second spot, Samsung is in fourth.

The other major sub-category was smartwatches, which grew a whopping 456.3% compared to last year. With 4.3 million shipments, they far outsell smart bands, which now mark the seventh straight quarter of falling shipments.

What’s interesting is that the big smartphone makers have failed to capture the smartwatch market in India – instead Noise, BoAt and Fire-Boltt account for two-thirds of the market. These are India-based companies, the ones with international presence (Realme and Zepp/Amazfit) settled for fourth and fifth.

Source | Via