The wearables market is booming worldwide as more users turn to health-focused devices for their everyday fitness needs. Last year, the wearables market saw a massive year-on-year growth of 170% during the first quarter, with shipments reaching 11.4 million units. Now, according to a recent IDC report, the global wearables market grew by 20% in 2021 as compared to the growth in 2020, with shipments reaching 171 million units at the end of Q4 2021. While Apple led the pack with the most number of wearable device shipments, Indian company boAt saw the highest growth rate, thanks to its popularity in India.
boAt Recorded Highest Wearables Growth Rate in 2021
According to a recent report by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the total shipments for wearables in 2021 reached 533.6 million units The wearables market continued its growth during 2021, thanks to the growth of hearables, which accounted for two-thirds of the entire wearables industry.
Amongst industry giants like Apple, Xiaomi, and Samsung, Imagine Marketing, the parent company of Boat, was able to take a spot on the list of the top 5 global wearables companies, thanks to its massive popularity in India. Although the company shipped only 26.8 million units of its products during 2021, significantly lower than Apple (161.8 million units) and Xiaomi’s (54.4 million units) share, boAt recorded a whopping 163.4% YoY growth last year.
There is a significant difference between the company’s growth rate in 2020 as compared to last year. Back in 2020, boAt recorded a YoY growth rate of only 2.3%. The report mentions that boAt’s high-value, low-cost strategy in India has proved to be highly successful for the company’s wearable as well as hearable devices.
Apple, Xiaomi, and Samsung also saw steady YoY growth rates of 6.8%, 7.1%, and 20.1%, respectively, in 2021. However, compared to boAt’s growth rate last year, the numbers are pretty low. Coming back to the number 1 spot, Apple had a 30.3% market share, followed by Xiaomi with 10.2%, Samsung with 9%, Huawei with 8%, and Imagine Marketing with 5%.
Ramon T. Llamas, the research director of Mobile Devices and AR/ VR at IDC, noted in a statement. “Although Apple remained far out front for the year, another telling sign of the market is the long list of vendors coming afterward. Samsung, Huawei, and Imagine Marketing all posted market-beating year-over-year growth, as did our collective ‘Others’ group.“
Other than this, the IDC report also mentioned that the lesser-known categories such as smart glasses, rings, and shoes also grew by 94.1% during 2021. This was driven by devices like the Oura Ring and the Facebook/Ray-Ban’s Stories smart glass.
Going forward, the global wearables and audio device shipments are expected to rise as the industry continues to expand to more regions across the world. Moreover, with companies like Meta, Samsung, and Google developing more new wearables, we can expect the industry to grow in the coming months.
