Smart and basic watches drive a return to wearable band market growth in Q2 2022 

According to the latest Canalys estimates, global wearable band shipments were up 2.0% in Q2 2022 at 41.7 million units, a return to growth after a decline of 3.7% in Q1. Basic watches and smartwatches, categorized under wristwatches, grew 46.6% and 9.3% respectively. The wristwatch category continues to drive development of the wearable band market, while basic bands suffered a big 35.5% decline in Q2 2022. Like the smart personal audio market, India’s wearable band market performance was the highlight in Q2, with impressive shipment growth of 275%, driven by basic watches. While India stayed in third place behind China and the US in terms of overall wearable band shipments, its share hit 15% for the first time. 

The basic watch boom fueled India’s growth, with the category accounting for 91% of all wearable band shipments in India, making India the world’s largest basic watch market with 5.7 million units shipped, overtaking China. “The local kings, such as Noise, Fire-Boltt and boAt, have found a winning formula to hit a quarterly shipment level of more than a million units quickly,” said Canalys Analyst Ashweej Aithal. “High affordability and appealing designs, marketed at young, savvy consumers, help vendors fulfill the current demand. But users often require deeper engagement with devices and health features to benefit from them. Users will soon look for improved devices and health features, such as better tracking accuracy and more health metrics. Vendors must anticipate this shift in people’s needs to avoid disappointing users and continue to sustain growth.” Noise led the wearable band market in India with a 29% market share, closely followed by Fire-Boltt and boAt with 25% and 20% market shares respectively. 

Apple continues to dominate the global wristwatch market with a 26% market share. Samsung overtook Huawei with solid growth of 58%, shipping 2.8 million smartwatches despite the much-anticipated launch of its Galaxy Watch 5 series in Q3 2022. “Within the Android space, Samsung is leading in leveraging its watches to enhance its premium ecosystem user experience,” said Canalys Analyst Cynthia Chen. “The latest releases from Samsung and Garmin and expected releases from Apple and Google in the coming months are intensifying competition among premium smartwatches. Smartwatch users are better informed about smartwatches and will choose the devices that offer the best tracking capabilities for their intended use cases, for general health tracking or sports performance tracking.” 

“The premium user experience extends from attractive designs and good build quality to intuitive software, seamless ecosystem integration and effective health tracking. While challenging, vendors must build experience and knowledge in developing software and tracking algorithms, combining them with a robust digital health strategy to win in the long term,” added Chen. 

For more information, please contact:   

Cynthia Chen: cynthia_chen@canalys.com +86 158 2151 8439 
Ashweej Aithal: ashweej_aithal@canalys.com +91 97386 19281 

About Wearable Band Analysis 

Canalys’ Wearable Band Analysis service provides qualitative and quantitative insights into the wearable band market and addresses the areas where vendors can improve. Our best-in-class service guides vendors and partners to make the right decisions on value propositions, choose the right channel partners and enhance go-to-market strategies to engage in different markets worldwide. The data has detailed splits, tracking a list of 50+ features around connectivity, components, sensors, chipsets and many other different categories. Model-level information is available for 30+ key markets. 

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