The Indian wearables market recorded 144.3 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth in 2020, driven by record shipments in hearables and watchess category, exiting the year with 36.4 million unit shipments, industry tracker International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Thursday through its research report.
India was the only country in the top 20 to see triple-digit growth in wearables in 2020 and continues to be the third-largest wearables market globally, showed IDC Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker.
Earwear device shipments increased over threefold in 2020 compared to 2019, “mainly driven by affordable launches, and expanding use cases beyond entertainment, like virtual meetings and e-learning requirements.” It constituted for 83.6 percent of the overall wearable market share to hit shipments of 30.4 million units in the year.
BoAt came out as the biggest player in the category, accounting for one-third of the category shipments.
“2020 was a year of transition in the audio segment from wired to wireless devices,” said Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.
“India was the only country in the top 20 to see triple-digit growth in wearables in 2020 and continues to be the third-largest wearables market globally. This growth was majorly driven by the increasing acceptance of earwear devices and upgrades to watches from wrist bands, both recording their highest annual shipments in 2020,” the report read.
Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds topped the charts in the hearables category and recorded a 10-fold increase in shipments, amounting to 11.3 million units. BoAt again LED the TWS segment with a 24.6 percent share, followed by Realme with a 13.5 per cent share in 2020.
Wristband shipments, however, saw a decline by 34.3 per cent YoY in 2020, amounting to 3.3-million units.
“After the introduction of wrist bands in the Indian market, 2020 was the first year when the category reported a decline. The increasing popularity of watches at price points similar to that of wristbands is the main factor for the decline of wristbands,” the report reads.
Xiaomi tops the list of brands in the smartband category with a 46.7 per cent market share in 2020, followed by Realme with a 12.3 percent category share.
Noise led the watch category with a 24.5 per cent share in 2020 as the category witnessed a 139.3 per cent YoY growth with shipments of 2.6-million units in 2020. Realme came in second with a 15.7 per cent share.
In terms of categories of products, the category was led by smartwatches, which constituted 24.5 per cent share in the watch category. Apple lead the smartwatch category with a 51 per cent share in 2020.
In Q4 2020 (Oct-Dec 2020), the wearables category saw a huge growth as it was the biggest quarter for wearables in India, maintaining triple-digit growth. Overall, vendors shipped 15.2 million units in 4Q20, growing 198.2 per cent YoY.
“This was the first quarter when shipments of watches crossed the one million mark as vendors shipped 1.3 million units during the quarter. Noise’s Colorfit pro-2, Realme watch, Apple’s watch series 6, and new launches from Amazfit provided this strong growth for watches in 4Q20,” as per the report.