According to the IDC report, the Indian wearables market posted a 144.3% year-over-year (YoY) growth in 2020 with shipments of 36.4 million units. The growth was driven by the increasing acceptance of earwear devices and upgrades to watches from wrist bands.
Earwear device shipments grew by threefold
The report also says earwear device shipments grew more than threefold in 2020, thanks to affordable launches and other use cases like virtual meetings and e-learning requirements. Notably, the earwear category accounted for 83.6% of the overall wearable market share to hit 30.4 million unit shipments in 2020.
BoAt emerged at the top, accounting for one-third of the category shipments. Samsung with its portfolio including JBL, Harman Kardon, Infinity finished second with a 14.5% share in 2020.
Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS)devices topped the chart with a tenfold increase in shipments totaling 11.3 million units in 2020. BoAt also led the TWS segment with a 24.6% share, followed by Realme with a 13.5% share in 2020.
Wristbands shipments in decline
Wristbands declined by 34.3% YoY in 2020 as the year ended with 3.3-million-unit shipments. This is due to the increasing popularity of watches at similar price points to that of wristbands.
In the wristbands category, Xiaomi continued to lead the category in 2020 with 46.7% of the share. Realme, which entered the segment in 2020 finished second with a 12.3% category share.
Watch category on the rise
On the other hand, Watches saw a 139.3% YoY growth with 2.6-million- unit shipments in 2020.
Noise led the watch category with a 24.5% share in 2020 followed by Realme with a 15.7% share in the year.
Smartwatches, which can run third-party applications on the device itself, accounted for a 24.5% share in the watch category, and Apple continues to lead the smartwatch category with a 51.0% share in 2020.
Q4 – The biggest quarter for wearables
The Q4 (Oct-Dec 2020) recorded the biggest quarter for wearables in India, maintaining triple-digit growth.
Overall, vendors shipped 15.2 million units in 4Q20, growing 198.2% 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.
Commenting on the outlook of the Indian wearables market, Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India said, “2020 was a year of transition in the audio segment from wired to wireless devices. In 2021, this category will further migrate to more sophisticated devices with enhanced audio experience being the central theme for all vendors,”. He further notes,” The high cost associated with wearable watches is not much of a challenge anymore. Also, the watch form factor is now seen as more appealing to the consumers, and vendors will leverage this shift by further expanding their watches portfolio in coming quarters”.