TWS Earbuds Shipments See Huge Rise in Q3 in India, Boat Leads Segment: IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) has released its Q3 2020 data for smartwatches and earphones and the firm suggests a year-over-year (YoY) growth of 165.1 percent was registered in the overall Indian wearables market. The most significant rise was observed in the earwear category, wherein a total of four million true wireless stereo (TWS) devices were reportedly shipped during the quarter. The TWS category reported a whopping annual growth of 1156.3 percent in Q3, 2020. The overall wearables market in India saw 11.8 million units shipped in third quarter of 2020.

The new report from IDC claims that wearable devices have become affordable over the last few quarters resulting in increase in shipments. The TWS earbuds average selling price has also reduced to $57 (roughly Rs. 4,200) in Q3 2020 – a YoY drop of 48.6 percent, resulting in massive shipments and growth. The earwear category, spearheaded by TWS earbuds, witnessed a 260.5 percent YoY growth in the third quarter of this year.

IDC notes that Boat leads in the earwear category with 32.4 percent of market share in the third quarter, and Samsung comes in second with 15 percent share. Narrowing it down to the TWS category, Boat again led with a 26.1 percent share, and Realme came in second with 15.5 percent market share.

Coming to other categories in the wearable segment, IDC says that while wristbands grew 83.3 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), the first half of 2020 witnessed a steady decline in shipments of wristbands. Due to the decline in the first six months, the wristband category saw a decline of 20.3 percent YoY. IDC says that this is because users in India started shifting from wristbands to watches. In the wristband category, Xiaomi holds the top position with 52.4 percent market share and Realme comes in second with 14.6 percent market share.

The watches category grew by a significant margin of 119.9 percent YoY in Q3. IDC claims that 778 thousand devices were shipped in this category ‘making it the biggest quarter since the launch of the category in India.’ IDC explains that this could be due to the average selling price of watches coming down from $175 (roughly Rs. 12,900) in Q3 2019 to $111 (roughly Rs. 8,200) in Q3 2020. This has encouraged buyers to switch from wristbands to watches. Noise leads this segment with 28.5 percent share, Realme and Huami share the second position with 24.2 percent share.

Which are the best truly wireless earphones under Rs. 10,000? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.