It is the fashionable gift: a quantifying bracelet or a smart watch are “very smart” choices, but they are also useful products that have consolidated the overwhelming success of wearables.
New data from IDC reveals that more than 100 million wearables were sold in the first quarter of 2021, something that there was no other year. Things are going great for this segment, and if there is a beneficiary of this boom period that is Apple, which dominates the sector with an Apple Watch that nobody coughs. At least for now.
Apple takes advantage of a fragmented segment
Although in some quarter even more wearables had been sold, that had never happened in a first quarter that usually slows down after Christmas.
The consulting firm’s data indicates that growth has been spectacular for the market, which has sold (or rather, distributed) 34.4% more units than in the same period last year.
Apple is the great dominator of the market: one out of every three devices distributed in that period were its own, and although it grew a remarkable 19.8%, it did not do so as much as Samsung (35.7% more) or Huawei (31.1%). Here the one that has been confused is Xiaomi, which has lost 1.8% of sales.
The one that surprises again with its sales is BoAt, which we already talked about a few weeks ago. This manufacturer grew 470% in the fourth quarter of 2020 and now it has done another 326%. Those numbers are likely to drop soon (it is not possible to maintain those rates indefinitely), but of course their growth is palpable even if it is limited to the Indian market.
As indicated by IDC, however, this market is highly fragmented, and it shows in the ‘Others’ section that brings together brands that together sold almost as much as Apple and Samsung together.
Those other brands also grew 55% compared to the same period last year, which makes it clear that there are many small firms trying to take a piece of this juicy cake.
It now remains to be seen if the alliance between Samsung and Google, which recently announced its rebranded Wear platform, yields results in this segment. If it does, yes, it will take time to see them in these figures.
