Indian wearable market’s shipments saw 168.3% year-over-year growth in 2019, closing the year with 14.9 million units sold.
Image credit: Xiaomi official website
According to an IDC report on February 27, basic wearables continue to dominate India's wearables market with a 96.2% category share, up 177% year-over-year in 2019. Accounting for most shipment volumes, the earwear category grew fivefold, shipping 8.5 million units; watches grew by 77.5% while wristbands ended the year as the second-largest wearable category. The last season of 2019 was a big time for wristbands, which saw 1.5 million units shipped in just three months, witnessing a 30.9% year-over-year growth.
The wearable devices market in India is anticipated to expand at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of nearly 26%, and reach a sales volume of 16.22 million units by 2024, from 4.72 million in 2019. Anisha Dumbre, market analyst at IDC India stated that "as more vendors entered this segment with affordable options, the Average Selling Price (ASP) of the category came down to USD 39 in 2019 from USD 63 a year ago, resulting in massive growth in this category."
In the Indian wearable market, main players include Apple (AAPL:NASDAQ), Xiaomi (1810:HK), Titan and Fossil (FOSL:NASDAQ). Apple occupies the most wireless earwear product slot with Airpods taking 43.1% market share, while Xiaomi leads the intelligent wristband market with 48.9% occupancy. Titan is the second biggest player, following Xiaomi, with 14.5 % market share, and Fossil takes first place in the smartwatch area with 30.3%. Players from the USA, China and Indian locals are competing for India wearable market, since the Indian market will become their next profitable country with a huge user base and business expanding space.
Xiaomi's story in India started 5 years ago, when the company held its first press conference in New Delhi with the consumer juggernaut's founder Lei Jun. Back in that time, the firm was intended to copy the 'investment + incubator' model from China to expand its product ecosystem in India. Over the recent years, Xiaomi has invested in multiple companies in the country, including Internet finance firm Krazybee and game developer Mechmocha, in order to establish the ecosystem center around intelligent mobile phones and the MIUI operating system. Krazybee can attribute mobile installment service for Xiaomi, and game companies can publish its products on Xiaomi's platform. Access to more users is the most important for it.
On February 13, Xiaomi 10 series mobile phone launch conference online. It's the first product that targets high-end flagship category. It carries a price range from CNY 4,000 to CNY 6,000, compared to the previous price of lower than CNY 3,000 for most products. It targets the market for mid- to high-end customers and aims to improve technology and quality. And Xiaomi advertised the 100-million-pixel resolution of the Xiaomi 10's image quality with a picture taken in space.
Lei Jun has recently said that "under the coronavirus, the sales volume of the entire industry will definitely decrease sharply in the first quarter, but it will retaliate in the second and third quarters. Besides, Xiaomi has 50% of its revenue from overseas markets and another 10% of its revenue from Internet services with these relatively less affected."