Smartwatch shipments in India took a big hit in Q4 2024, part of a broader and trend-bucking decline in the overall wearables sector in the nation, IDC revealed.
The research company’s figures indicate the drop in smartwatch shipments were primarily responsible for the first year-on-year decline in the overall wearables figure ever booked in India.
It pointed to a generally drab set of smartwatches as the main reason for the decline, citing a “lack of meaningful innovations and technological advancements”.
IDC’s figures pointed to a slight shift towards higher-tier smartwatches, which it noted took a greater share of the smaller market.
It placed total smartwatch shipments at 35 million units, down 34.4 per cent.
This offset growth of 3.8 per cent in earwear shipments to 83.5 million units, with so-called truly wireless stereo products up 9.4 per cent and over ear devices 83.6 per cent higher.
Overall shipments of 119 million units were down 11.3 per cent and Vikas Sharma, senior market analyst, does not expect a brighter future this year as the smartwatch sector continues to weigh on the wearables category as a whole.
Sharma predicted smart rings and glasses would provide some uplift, with “high double-digit growth” as vendors up the devices’ sensing capabilities, deploy AI and boost health monitoring capabilities.