Samsung, Apple top smartwatch shipments in March quarter, IDC report

The South Korean company saw a double digit growth and accounted for 65.3% of all shipment volume in the smartwatch category in the March quarter.

Apple was the second leading brand in the smartwatch segment with 22.7% of the shipment. Fitbit (4.7%), Fossil (3.5%) and Garmin (1.7%) were the other three brands in the top five.

IDC has slightly different benchmarks for what qualifies as a smartwatch as compared to other market research firms. As per IDC, a smartwatch can run third party apps and has an app store. IDC classified watches by Noise and BoAt as basic watches.

It explains why none of the Indian brands including Noise, Fire-Boltt and BoAt feature in IDC’s top five smartwatch list. Whereas, as per Counterpoint’s May report, they were the top three smartwatch brands in India in the March quarter with a combined shipment volume of 62%.

The Galaxy Watch 4 was the key driver for Samsung’s growth during the quarter. The device recorded double digit quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth in India, Samsung said.

“We ensured wider availability of our devices across both offline (6000+ stores) and online channels including e-commerce platforms and also introduced improved payment mechanisms and financing options, to improve access and drive greater affordability,” said Aditya Babbar, senior director and head of product marketing at Samsung India.

Further, Samsung also cited IDC data on the truly wireless stereo (TWS) segment and pointed out that it accounted for 31% of the shipments in the category but only for devices priced above ₹ 5,500. According to Samsung, Galaxy Buds 2 was the key driver for growth for the brand in the TWS category.

IDC didn’t share data on the top five brands in the overall TWS category. However, in one of its May reports, the market researcher said it is one of the fastest growing segments– share of TWS grew to 48% from 34% in the ear wear category in March quarter.

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