While the share of smartwatches grew from 26.8% YoY to 41.4% and the earwear category saw a strong growth of 48.5% YoY, wristband shipments saw a massive decline of 86.7%.
“Brands are coming out with a variety of smartwatch models with metal straps/casings, circular dials, rugged finishes and premium designs. Brand new smartwatches clubbed with advanced communication features like LTE, digital payment options, and more accurate sensors/algorithms are attracting consumers as well as driving fresh purchases,” Upasana Joshi, Research Manager, Client Devices , said IDC India.
Several smaller Indian brands holding around 15% share are further intensifying the competition. Increased competition reduced overall ASPs in Q1-2023 to $22.7 (compared to $29.5 a year ago). Additionally, the overall wearables market is dominated by the online channel with a 73.9% share.
Top five companies in the wearables segment in Q1 2023
Imagine Marketing (bot) maintained its top position with 25.6% share as it grew by 102.4%. Its smartwatch category accounted for 28.3% of total shipments in Q1-2023 and the company also led the TWS segment with 30.6% share, growing at 81.9% YoY.
The FireBolt ranked second in the overall wearables category with a 12.4% share. It leads the smartwatch category with a 28.6% share, a growth of 224.2%.
Nexxbase (Noise) ranked third with 97.3% YoY growth and 11.9% market share in the overall market. The company moved into second place in the smartwatch category with a 21.6% share, growing at an annual rate of 157.6%.
Boult Audio secured the fourth position with 366.5% YoY growth and 9.3% market share in Q1-2023. It retained the second position in the TWS category with 15.5% share and 341.2% YoY growth.
Oppo, which also includes OnePlus, ranked fifth with 4.7% share. Its shipments declined by 5.8% in the first quarter-2023.