(Jan-2024) Around one in three of the world’s wearable devices is bought by someone in India.
Analyst firm IDC last week disclosed the results of its India Monthly Wearable Device Tracker for 2023, reporting that Indian buyers acquired 134.2 million wearables, including smartwatches, fitness trackers and “earwear” – essentially Bluetooth headphones.
Domestic brands boAt, Noise, and Fire topped sales charts, ahead of China’s Oppo.
Smartwatch shipments jumped by 73.7 percent year on year to reach 53.4 million.
But just 2.1 percent of those shipments were of what IDC calls “advanced” smartwatches – a category that scored 2.1 percent market share. The average selling price for smartwatches in India fell from $42.5 to $26.1 across 2023.
In mid-2023, IDC predicted global wearable sales would reach 504 million. If that prediction was correct, India is a very substantial source of wearable buyers.