Shipments of wearable electronics including smartwatches and earbuds declined for the first time ever in the first quarter of 2022 thanks to cooling consumer demand following fast growth during the pandemic, IDC said.
Of the top four companies in the vertical, only Apple saw growth for the quarter of 6.6% over the prior year, partly due to 2 million shipments of Apple Watch SE, which has been on the market more than 18 months.
“Cooling demand will force companies to further differentiate themselves,” said Ramon Llamas, research director for mobile devices at IDC in a statement.
“Competition is also on the rise as smaller brands ramp up their basic health and fitness tracing watches at the low end and as Google along with Samsung and other Wear OS partners finally become more competitive with Apple at the high end of the spectrum,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC.
Even with the success of Apple Watches in the quarter, Apple saw flat shipments of AirPods as the company faced more competition from low-cost products.
Samsung was second to Apple for the quarter in shipments but was down nearly 10 compared to last year. Both Apple and Samsung faced competition from lower-priced vendors. However, the Galaxy Watch 4 series was popular, with 32% growth in the quarter, IDC said.
Xiaomi finished third but saw a 24% decline due to weakness in wristband sales. But IDC sees progress for Xiaomi in watches and hearables with a low cost, high value strategy.
Huawei was fourth with a decline of 10% and remained focused on the Chinese market. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put downward pressure on the European market which could hurt Huawei in future quarters.
Imagine Marketing shipped just 10% of the volume of wearables as Apple but finished fifth in the overall standings with a 5% increase over the prior year. The company has a large presence in India.
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