Promising Wearables market for next year

India’s wearables market is poised to touch 100 million units this year and is expected to grow to total 117 million units next year. The swift increase in the growth in the sector is driven by rising smartwatch sales and expanding offline sales.

The young demographics and high disposable income in the country is one of the largest growth drivers of the industry. Continuous investment in research & development and marketing activities by the wearables manufacturers is positively impacting the industry’s growth. With this Next year we are going to witness a wide range of technological advancements in the wearables market in India with new product launches with ameliorated features,

The India Consumer Wearables Market Segmentations depends on 4 factors

1. By Type of Wearables: Fitness trackers dominated the wearables industry in India in 2020 on the basis of revenue. The adoption of wearables is currently led by decrease in the price of fitness trackers. In addition to being cheap, these devices now offer features which were once only available in high end devices.

2. By Price Segment: Wearables between the price category of Rs 10,000- Rs 20,000 will generate more demand as disposable income of the individuals rises in the country. This will be further fuelled by decline in prices of fitness bands and smartwatches as competition is expected to increase.

3. By Type of City: Owing to high levels of pollution in the air and adulteration in the diet, residents of metro cities have become more fitness conscious as compared to the residents in its counterpart. As a result, these metro cities contribute a higher proportion of sales revenue in the fitness tracker market.

4. By Distribution Channel: Since majority of the sales comes from Tier-1 and surrounding cities, the preferred channel of sales is online. This is due to the fact, as residents in these regions are more literate and find online medium as an easy platform to compare and buy products.

With the increasing popularity of smartwatches in India, the product will draw in more diverse customer demographics such as children and elderly shoppers. Emerging brands including NOISE, MIVI, DIZO and FIRE-BOLT have witnessed a sharp growth in the Off-line space as compared to the on-line sales.

However, although the smart wearables market is expected to continue to grow, its growth rate could fall sharply from the 51% growth seen in 2022 to less than 20%. Fears of a full-blown recession could curtail consumer spending in India on ‘non-essential’ categories.

The trend shows, India currently trails China and the US in the smart wearables market in terms of units sold. Next year could still see India overtake the US in terms of units sold, especially as the US is facing an economic downturn.