Wearables Market in India Declines for First Time, Down 10% YoY: IDC

The total market for wearable devices in India declined by 10 percent year-over-year for the second quarter of 2024, according to IDC’s India Monthly Wearable Device Tracker. The research firm cites fewer new launches and a move by vendors to clear out stocks of older devices before the festive season as reasons for this shift in a category that has seen significant momentum over the past few years. 

Breaking the market down into categories, smartwatch shipments were down by 27.4 percent compared to 2Q 2023, with only 9.3 million units sold, although “advanced smartwatches” grew by 21.9 percent and smart bands grew by 23.4 percent. Smartwatches as a percentage of wearables overall dropped to 31.5 percent from 39 percent YoY. 

Earwear as a category was static, growing by only 0.7 percent with 20.1 million units shipped. True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earphones accounted for a record 71 perent of this, up from 65.5 percent last year. IDC also identified a new subcategory of OWS (Open Wireless Solution) earphones which is currently a niche but could expand soon. 

IDC reported a staggering 1,12,725 percent growth for “others”, due to the emergence of smart glasses and smart rings, which are not yet categories of their own. Over 72,000 smart rings were shipped in 2Q 2024 and IDC projects that this will grow in the festive season with more affordable options launching. However, in absolute numbers, this is not yet enough to compensate for the decline of smartwatches. 

Boat currently leads the overall wearables market in India with 26.7 percent market share, followed by Noise with 13 percent and Boult with 8.1 percent. Fire-Boltt and Oppo (including OnePlus) came in at 8 percent and 7.6 percent respectively. Other brands accounted for 36.6 percent of the market, showing that there is still immense fragmentation and room for consolidation.

Within the smartwatch segment, Titan was listed in fourth place at 7.9 percent market share, having grown by 68.9 percent YoY thanks to the launch of new models, whereas Noise, Fire-Boltt, and Boat, ranked 1-3, and Boult in fifth place, all declined by between 16.6 percent and 44.9 percent. 

On the bright side, Boat (up 5.1 percent), Boult (up 47.1 percent) and Noise (up 52 percent) ranked 1-3 in the true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones market with 34 percent, 12.9 percent and 9.2 percent market share respectively, Oppo (including OnePlus) declined by 5.2 percent to 7.4 percent total market share, with Realme in 5th place at 6.4 percent after growing by an impressive 77.1 percent.