New Delhi, June 2 (IANS) Riding on the growing earwear category, the India wearables market registered 42 lakh unit shipments in the first quarter of this year, clocking 80.6 per cent growth year-over-year (YoY), a new International Data Corporation (IDC) report said on Tuesday.
The earwear category, which is witnessing a major shift from wired to wireless devices, grew by 289.2 per cent (YoY) with 30 lakh units being shipped alone.
Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS) now contributes 23.1 per cent to the overall earwear category, growing 300.7 per cent annually in Q1.
“The lockdown which led to growing need of working from home and also, increased the entertainment consumption, has further accelerated the shift to wireless devices,” said Anisha Dumbre, Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC India.
boAt led the earwear segment with a 23.9 per cent share, competing very closely with Samsung, that includes devices from Samsung, Infinity, and JBL, with a 23.6 per cent share in this category.
Samsung surpassed Apple in the Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS) category with a 29.8 per cent market share mainly because of its newly launched Galaxy Buds Plus.
However, Covid-19 has slowed down the pace of growth for wearables in India.
“Now when people are working from home and having limited physical activity, the usage of watches and fitness bands in India has drastically come down,” said Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.
“This impact is expected to prevail for a few more quarters, however, we expect some resurgence in demand in the second half of the year and outlook remains positive for the year,” Singh added.
The quarter registered its first sequential decline after consecutively growing for the last eight quarters as the shipments declined 17.9 per cent.
Supply constraints from China, followed by the countrywide lockdown in mid-March led to this decline.
The impact was largely seen on wrist bands as the category saw a 33.5 per cent quarter over quarter (QoQ) decline.
In wristband category, Xiaomi maintained its lead with 41.9 per cent market share, although it witnessed an annual dip of 39.3 per cent from the same quarter last year.
GOQii with its integrated preventive healthcare platform overtook Titan to reach the second position with a 13.6 per cent share in Q1.
Watches observed growth of 43.3 per cent in Q1. Huami’s Amazfit continued to maintain its lead in the watch segment with a 22.4 per cent category share.
Fossil stood second with 17.9 per cent category share, closely followed by Apple with a 17.7 per cent share to hold the third position in this category.
“However, Apple still leads the smartwatch category which includes the watches which can run third-party applications on the device itself,” said the report.
–IANS
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