The Indian wearable market witnessed strong growth in the third quarter of 2018. According to data from International Data Corporation’s (IDC) quarterly wearables device tracker, smart wearables which can run third-party applications on their own saw two successive quarters of double-digit growth and shipped 102,000 units in the third quarter of 2018, the first quarter which shipments crossed 100,000 units.
Moreover, the surge in smartwatch shipment volumes has also helped the category to grow. But the quarter also saw a new leader in the smart wearable segment as Samsung overtook Apple.
The overall India wearables market saw a 17 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth in the quarter as vendors shipped a total of 897,000 units. However, overall shipments declined 11 per cent from the previous quarter due to a double-digit decline in basic wearables.
“Wearables companies had procured a high inventory of basic wearables, mostly on wristbands in the 2018Q2, which they cleared in the initial months of the third quarter. While July and August remained flat in terms of new shipments, September did observe a recovery as vendors started preparing the channel for upcoming online festivals in the country.
This helped to limit the decline of the overall category,” IDC’s analysts said in their report. Jaipal Singh, IDC India however said that it was “too early” to say that market has “started moving towards smart wearables”.
Q3 market leaders
Xiaomi
maintained leadership in the India market with 41 per cent market share. The newly launched Mi band 3 became the most shipped wearable product ever in India.
GOQii
continued to hold the second position with a healthy 47 per cent YoY growth and 19 per cent market share. It remains the leading player in the commercial segment.
Titan
phased out its older models and launched Fastrack’s Reflex 2.0, helping it get a healthy 70 per cent sequential growth in its overall shipments and maintain third position.
Samsung
returned to the top five wearable companies in India. It replaced Fitbit as the fourth largest wearables company with shipments tripling from the previous quarter.
Fossil
was able to capture the fifth position after moving out from the top five last quarter, seeing triple-digit sequential growth as Q Explorist Gen 3 shipments continued to grow.
