In the overall consumer electronics market downturn in 2022, smartphone shipments retreated to the level of a few years ago, TWS (truly wireless stereo headphones) growth slowed down the wind no longer, while smart watches have withstood the industry's cold wave.
According to a new report by market research firm Counterpoint Research, shipments to the global smartwatch market grew 13% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2022, with India's smartwatch market growing more than 300% year-over-year to surpass China in second place.
Sujeong Lim, deputy director of Counterpoint, said that Huawei, Amazfit and other major Chinese brands have seen limited YoY growth or decline, and the smartwatch market is still on the right track for healthy growth given the 9% YoY decline in the smartphone market over the same period.
In this regard, Sun Yanbiao, director of the First Mobile Phone Industry Research Institute, told China Business News that the new crown pneumonia epidemic has led consumers to strengthen their health status (such as monitoring blood oxygen and body temperature), and the global smartwatch market will likely explode in the first half of next year. And Steven Waltzer, senior industry analyst for global wireless strategy services at market research firm Strategy Analytics, said, "The Chinese smartwatch market is relatively segmented based on application scenarios, and in addition to head players such as Genius, Huawei and Huami, OPPO, Vivo, realme, oneplus and other major Chinese smartphone brands are also making inroads into the smartwatch circuit, while small and medium-sized branded smartwatch vendors are also paving their way into this long-tail market, which also has health monitoring features and is less expensive."
"The War on the Wrist"
Digital expert and reviewer Liao Zihan started wearing smartwatches in 2016, from the initial Apple Watch to the current Huawei Watch, during which he has hardly left the smartwatch on his wrist. What puzzled him was that some people had questioned the pseudo-demand of smartwatches, teasing them as "big smart bracelets".
"One is to play the role of information notification, and the other is to make up for the lack of body monitoring by cell phones." Liao Zihan said that those sports enthusiasts who want to know their health status are the real target users of smart watches. The relevant data from Ai Media Consulting shows that among the many functions of smart watches, health data monitoring is the most commonly used function by surveyed users, accounting for 61.1%, followed by GPS positioning (55.7%) and sports recording function (54.7%).
In Liao Zihan's opinion, smart watches are mainly divided into three categories: one is children's watches, such as Xiaogi, 360, etc., which focus on safety and socialization of minors; one is professional smart watches like Jiaming, Amazfit and Keep, which take the route of outdoor extreme sports and are oriented to professional people and are very expensive; and one is smart watches launched by smartphone manufacturers, which are considered as cell phones The complementary of smart phones.
In 2014, Apple released the first generation of Apple Watch, which set off a new round of "war on the wrist". Then domestic cell phone manufacturers followed up, Huawei released the first smartwatch Huawei Watch in 2015, Xiaomi, which entered the wearable devices from smart bracelet, officially entered the smartwatch in 2019, while OPPO and Vivo entered the game relatively late, releasing related smartwatch products in 2020.
Counterpoint related data show that Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi these cell phone manufacturers into the top 8 list of global smartwatch market shipments in the second quarter of 2022. However, although domestic Android cell phone manufacturers have entered the market, Liao Zihan believes that they may be looking to Apple at the beginning to do smart watches.
Overall, in the smartwatch category, Android manufacturers have made breakthroughs in health and range in order to differentiate themselves from Apple, but each has a different understanding of smartwatches. "Huawei puts health monitoring in the first place, there is also a special Huawei Health Lab, emphasizing its range and health monitoring function; OPPO's concept is that the watch must do the same as the cell phone operation, that is, you can get the cell phone experience with the watch; Xiaomi watch development is relatively slow, the appearance is doing well, more of the hand ring function is transplanted to the watch. " Liao Zihan said.
However, Steven Waltzer said that the release of new models, better features and more favorable prices are the growth drivers driving the smartwatch market, but OPPO, Vivo, realme, oneplus, which are late entrants, still need to spend a lot of energy if they want to gain some market share from the head players.
The unit price dip ushered in the outbreak?
In terms of different regional markets, Counterpoint's data shows that China's smartwatch market performed poorly in the second quarter of this year and was overtaken by India's market, coming in third, while US users are still the biggest buyers in the smartwatch market. It is worth mentioning that the Indian smartwatch market is on fire, with a growth rate of over 300%.
"During the quarter, 30 percent of the models shipped in the Indian market were priced below $50." Sujeong Lim said, "Major local brands have launched cost-effective models, lowering the barrier to entry for consumers." In this regard, Sun Yanbiao also said that the Indian smartwatch market is growing rapidly not only because of its already small base, but also because Fire-Boltt and Noise local brands have launched inexpensive Apple Watch knock-offs.
In the case of the weak consumer electronics industry, Sun Yanbiao is optimistic about the market prospects of smart watches that have withstood the cold snap. "Our statistics show that the global smartwatch grew by 10% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year and is expected to grow by 20% year-on-year for the whole year." He said the new crown pneumonia epidemic makes consumers pay more and more attention to health, the global smart watch market will have a window of outbreak in the first half of next year.
And some changes in Huaqiang North electronic stalls, deepened Sun Yanbiao's confidence in this speculation. "The percentage of stalls selling smart watches in Huaqiang North market in 2020 was about 10%, and it has grown to 20% in the first half of this year." He believes that the same belongs to wearable devices, the momentum of the development of smart watches can be referred to TWS, in the TWS market at the hottest time, Huaqiang North has 30% to 40% of stalls engaged in TWS business.
In Sun Yanbiao's opinion, the further popularization of dual-mode smart watches is an important reason for the explosion of smart watches this year. The so-called dual-mode refers to the smart watch can be connected to the cell phone through Bluetooth, but also can achieve independent communication functions such as calling via eSIM card, such as running at night without wearing a cell phone, and wearing a smart watch can call and chat with WeChat.
It should be noted that eSIM is Embedded-SIM, and eSIM card is embedded SIM card. Compared with the traditional SIM card used in cell phones, eSIM card embeds the SIM card into the chip, so when users use smart devices with eSIM card, they only need to open the service online and download the number information to the eSIM card, and then the smart devices can have independent communication function like cell phones.
According to Sun Yanbiao, the dual-mode coexistence of eSIM card and Bluetooth call is the main force of the future smart watch. The independent eSIM card and separate OS system make the smart watch no longer a "toy" of chicken and rib, and the smart watch has more possibilities of development.
With the maturity of technology, more and more manufacturers are trying to realize the call function on smart watches. In May of this year, GateKeeper launched a thousand-dollar 4G call watch Tic Watch, which supports eSIM one dual terminal independent communication, and can use the watch alone to receive and make calls, and check and receive information from QQ, Fishu and Nail independently.
"At present, the manufacturers such as Zhongke Lanxun, Jieli and Ruiyu can provide the chips needed for dual-mode smart watches, and the high-end ones still need Qualcomm, MediaTek, etc. There is no accident, dual-mode watches will be popular in the fourth quarter of this year, and the price will go down to 500 yuan." Sun Yanbiao said.
Steven Waltzer also believes that the overall price of smartwatches in China will be lower in the future. "The overall price of smartwatches in China is 15-20% lower than in other high-growth countries, and in fact remains slightly below the global average relative to the overall smartwatch market. As shipments grow, we expect overall smartwatch wholesale prices to decrease by 8% between 2022 and 2027."
Post time: Jan-11-2023
