India’s TWS market saw record shipments in 2021, boAt remains leader: IDC
The Indian truly wireless stereo (TWS) device market regered record shipments of 20.3 million units in 2021, growing 74.7 per cent over the previous year, according to International Data Corporation’s (IDC) India Wearable Device Tracker. Indian manufacturers accounted for over 65 per cent of the shipments in the category. They accounted for less than half the market in the previous year.
boAt emerged as the market leader capturing over two-fifths of the shipments that happened in 2021, higher than the combined share of the next seven manufacturers on the l. Its performance was especially exceptional in the fourth quarter of the year (October-December 2021) when it accounted for close to half the market volume.
Realme retained its second position with a 7.7 per cent market share, while Noise beat Samsung to the third position with a 7.5 per cent market share. Noise also emerged as the fastest-growing brand in the segment with a 194.7 per cent growth in sales over the previous year.
PTron was the number four players overall, clocking double digit growth as well. Samsung was at the number five position in the market. Samsung’s data includes devices from Samsung, JBL, Infinity, and Harman Kardon. However, the South Korean tech giant saw a 23.0 per cent YoY decline in 2021 and had 4.7 per cent market share at the end of 2021.
According to IDC, the pandemic drove use cases for TWS earphones, contributing to the remarkable growth of the category in the year. The average selling price for products in the category came down from $43.6 in 2020 to $32.8 in 2021, contributing further to the growth of sales. In fact, nearly 90 per cent of the devices considered IDC have a sub-$50 price tag.
Keep in mind that IDC’s data for ear-worn device to be considered wearable in this category requires that the device offers functionality beyond audio. These are features such as a smart assant, health and fitness tracking, audio experience enhancement, or language translation.
