The smartwatch market recorded a healthy 24 percent year-on-year growth in 2021, a report from Counterpoint Research has said. The smartphone market, which hardly grew in the previous year in 2020 due to COVID-19, saw a healthy return to growth last year. Counterpoint Research’s Global Smartwatch Model Tracker also said that the fourth quarter alone saw shipments of more than 40 million units, highest quarterly shipments ever. Further, the report shows that Apple continues to dominate the market with over a 30 percent market share. Let us take a look at some talking points from Counterpoint Research’s Global Smartwatch Model Tracker.
1. The global smartwatch market grew 24 percent in 2021 as compared to the previous year 2020. Counterpoint said that with their ability to monitor important health parameters like blood pressure, ECG and SPO2, these devices are becoming popular.
2. In Q4 2021, the smartwatch market saw 40 million shipments. This is the highest quarterly shipments ever for the smartwatch market. Counterpoint said that the attractiveness of smartwatches as independent wearable devices will increase if more of them start supporting cellular connectivity.
3. Apple maintained its lead in the global smartwatch market. The company was on number 1 with a 30 percent market share. This, despite a 3 percent fall year-on-year.
4. Apple Watch accounted for half of the total market revenue. This was achieved because Apple’s average selling price for Apple Watch (ASP) also rose 3 percent without the release of an SE model in 2021.
5. Samsung registered a more than 200 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the third quarter to record its highest shipments ever.
6. Huawei‘s year-on-year shipments keep declining, as expected. The brand’s Watch GT 3 and Watch Fit Mini, both released in the fourth quarter doubled Huawei’s shipments quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2021.
7. Amazfit is marking itself as a major player in the smartwatch market. The company has recorded more than 20 percent year-on-year growth over the past two years and its ASP has also rose 11 percent as the production of high-end models of the brand has increased.
8. Garmin performed better than expected in 2021. The watchmaker had initially focused on introducing high-priced smartwatches for special categories like aviation and divers. But it is gradually shifting focus to bringing attractive consumer products from price and design perspective. As a result, it showed 352021 percent YoY growth and took sixth place by raising its global ranking by one place.
9. Fitbit showed weak performance in 2021. Since the launch of the Sense and Versa 3 models in the third quarter of 2020, there has been no launch of new models, which seems to be due to strategy changes and reorganization due to the merger with Google. Fitbit showed a YoY decrease of more than 15 percent in 2021. It is expected to rebound with the release of the Versa 4 in the second half of 2022.
10. Xiaomi showed strong performance with its Mi Watch Lite in the first half of 2021 and released the Redmi Watch 2 series in Q4 2021. In this series, it launched the ‘Lite’ variant to broaden users’ choices and we expect it to contribute to Xiaomi’s market share gain.
11. Noise, Indian brand, was the fastest-growing brand among the global top 9 brands. Leading the growth of the Indian smartwatch market, Noise was India’s No. 1 brand in 2021 and 2020.
