India Becomes Giant Market Of Smartwatches, Wearable Device Shipments Increase More Than 80 Percent

The country has shipped over 25 million wearable devices in the first quarter of this year. This is 80.9 percent more than the previous year. Smartwatches (including basic and advanced) were the fastest growing category in this segment. It shipped around 10.4 million units, a growth of over 178 percent on a year-on-year basis.

According to International Data Corporation’s (IDC) monthly wearable device tracker, growth in the first quarter was roughly flat compared to the fourth quarter of last year. IDC has told“Growth has been driven by increased supply, low inventory, new launches.” Apart from this, the launch of products in this segment by many firms in the country has reduced the average selling prices. “The addition of health tracking technology will be essential to sustain growth,” said Vikas Sharma, senior market analyst, IDC’s country unit.

Commenting on the smartwatch category, Upasana Joshi, Research Manager (Client Devices), IDC, said, “There are a variety of smartwatches coming up with metal straps/casings, circular dials, rugged finishes and improved designs. These include digital payment options, LTE As advanced features are being added, this has led to new smartwatch customers as well as repeat buyers in the category.” This year the smartwatch market can be more than five crore units. It was around 3.07 crore units last year.

India reached the top of the global smartwatch market in the third quarter of last year. The country accounted for nearly 30 percent of global shipments of smartwatches during this period. In this segment, India had left behind other global markets with a growth of 171 percent on a year-on-year basis. Affordable brands like Noise and Fire-Boltt have contributed a lot in increasing the sales of smartwatches. Data and analytics firm Counterpoint reported that India has overtaken North America and China in the global market for smartwatches. The basic smartwatch category, which is driving the sales of this segment in India, consists of smartwatches that run on basic operating systems and do not support downloading additional apps.