India is on its way to becoming the world’s largest market for wearables by the end of 2023, likely to fuel global demand for smartwatches and earphones. While North America and China are showing signs of saturation amid macroeconomic headwinds, India continues to flourish.
Of the total 504 million units of wearables forecast to be shipped worldwide this year, India is expected to account for 26% or 130-135 millions per market research firm IDC India, and 27%, per Counterpoint Research. Last year, India had shipped around 100 million units of wearables making up nearly a fifth of the 492-million-unit global shipments, IDC noted.
The Indian market’s growth is due to its lower saturation level and the number of smartphone users who also own wearable devices. Counterpoint Research noted that currently, for every smartphone sold in India, a smartwatch is also sold.
“India has already surpassed the United States and China in terms of market size and will remain the largest market going forward thanks to the breadth of low-cost yet feature-rich devices from local vendors,” IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said in a report.
India’s fast growth – estimated up to 35% in 2023 by IDC and around 56% by Counterpoint – will enable the global shipments of wearables to rebound after declining for the first time ever in 2022.
IDC said the earwear category, which contributes 60% of the wearable shipments, will be consolidating going forward owing to limited use cases, innovation, and discomfort in wearing the device all day long. On the other hand, smartwatches attract more tech innovation, and various designs and add functionality to the daily routine, IDC researcher Upasana Joshi noted.