IDC Says Wearables Market Continues to Grow, But Only if You Count Things in Your Ears

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It's no secret: hearables have been a smashing success, with devices similar Apple tree's (NASDAQ:APPL) AirPods or Samsung's (KRX:005930) Galaxy Buds becoming pretty much ubiquitous. New data from IDC quantifies but how much this market has grown, with the research firm reporting that as of Q4 2022 but over half (55%) of the wearables market now belongs to hearables.

IDC isn't breaking out the specific quarterly data of hearables vs non-hearables in the overall wearables category, but it says there were 118.nine million vesture devices shipped, which represents an 82% growth rate. Wrist-worn devices now represent approximately 44% of the total market, downwardly from 69% last holiday season. Within this subcategory, watches had 15% year-over-year growth while wristbands grew by 18%.

For all of 2022, vendors in the space shipped a total of 336.5 1000000 wearable devices worldwide, resulting in an 89% increase from the 178 million units shipped in 2022. Of these, hearables represented 170.5 million units which reflects a 250% growth over the 2022 numbers. Wristbands finished 2022 with 69.4 1000000 units shipped worldwide, while watches reached 92.4 million units shipped in 2022, up 22.7% from the 75.3 million units shipped in 2022.

Top Five Wearables Companies for Q4 2022

Apple

Apple tree dominated the market in volume for the fourth quarter of 2022 with 43.four million devices shipped, largely thanks to refreshed versions of its AirPods, AirPods Pro, and Apple Watch lineups. That being said, IDC reports that the Apple tree Watch declined past v.ii% quarter-over-quarter.

Xiaomi

Adjacent upward was Xiaomi, which posted shipments of 12.eight million. IDC says that of these 12.eight one thousand thousand devices shipped, approximately 9.4 million (73%) were wristbands. However, the share of wristbands within Xiaomi'southward overall wearables lineup has declined from the fourth quarter of 2022, when they accounted for 81.8% of shipments.

Samsung

Samsung came in third place for the quarter with shipments of 10.5 one thousand thousand and an overall market share of just nether 9%. Samsung is also a rare example of a company that did not have its shipments driven by hearables. Instead, IDC credits its success this quarter to the popularity of the Galaxy Agile and Active 2 smartwatches.

Huawei

IDC says that Huawei was in a statistical tie with Samsung for the 4th quarter of 2022. Despite the trade war with the US, and the sensitivity of the Huawei brand in certain markets, the Chinese manufacturer saw its shipments leap by almost 63% thanks to the success of the GT2 smartwatch. IDC reported that the company shipped nine.iii 1000000 vesture devices for the quarter.

Fitbit

While Fitbit came in fifth place this quarter, the numbers testify that the company is really on the rebound. IDC's study says the company crossed the six million mark for the offset time thank you to the release of its Versa 2 and discounted Versa Lite and Ionic. Overall, Fitbit has 5% of the market place and posted 7.8% year-over-yr growth when compared to 2022.

Merely Are Hearables Actually Wearables?

IDC defines hearables as "devices that operate wirelessly and provide stereo sound while as well including at least one of the following features: Rails wellness/fitness, modify sound, provide language translation on the device, or enable smart administration at the bear upon of a button or through hotword detection."

Counting all hearables every bit wearables is a flake disingenuous and comes off equally a fashion to "salvage" the category which until the breakout growth of devices similar the AirPod was on the pass up. AsWccftechhas argued before, most customers would acquaintance wearables with things like smartwatches or smart bands -- not earphones.

It's somewhat debatable whether a single function accessory should be counted equally a wearable device in its own right. If you lot rewind back a few years, the category was rapidly softening because anything that wasn't an Apple tree Watch struggled for success, and AirPods were not withal included in the sizing of the market place as the definition IDC uses to define the category recently expanded to include them. During the third quarter of 2022, IDC reported that the worldwide wearable market was set to grow by 7.three% for the yr and in 2022 this number dropped downwardly to 6.ii%.

To be certain, the "legacy" wearables market is growing as manufacturers create devices that are meliorate aligned with consumer expectations. Nevertheless, if you lot remove the hearables category -- the definition of which has recently expanded -- the terminate result is a market that's non as strong as some would have you believe.

Source: https://wccftech.com/idc-says-wearables-market-continues-to-grow-but-only-if-you-count-things-in-your-ears/

Posted by: reynoldsglearand.blogspot.com

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