• Wearables continue to see greater demand with consumers becoming more health conscious.
• India (+57% YoY), Europe (+9% YoY) and the US (+5% YoY), the most affected regions of Covid-19, saw a healthy growth in shipments which offset decline in other markets.

Dubai: Revenues from the smartwatch market increased 20% per cent year on year despite the Covid-19 pandemic and with shipments remaining flat.

About 42 million smartwatches were shipped globally in the first half of this year as wearables continue to see greater demand with consumers becoming more health conscious.

Counterpoint Research said that the top three brands – Apple, Garmin and Huawei – contributed more than 69% of the total market revenue in the first half of the year.

Sujeong Lim, Senior IoT Analyst at Counterpoint Research, said that the smartwatch space remains a popular consumer device segment, compared to the downturn seen in smartphone demand and many other segments in the first six months of 2020 due to the devastation caused by Covid-19.

India (+57% YoY), Europe (+9% YoY) and the US (+5% YoY), the most affected regions of Covid-19, saw a healthy growth in smartwatch shipments which offset the decline in other markets.

Among the brands, Apple captured a record half of the market in terms of revenue due to strong demand for the Apple Watch S5 models. Apple Watch grew 22% globally with Europe and North America being the fastest growing markets in the first half of 2020.

Garmin, the second-largest brand in terms of revenue globally, continued to make strides cornering the sports enthusiast and athlete market. The brand saw healthy demand (+31% YoY) for its Forerunner and Fenix line, making up one of the broadest portfolios of smartwatches in the market. Europe and North America remain the key markets for Garmin.

Brands’ growth story

Neil Shah, Vice-President for Research at Counterpoint Research, said that Huawei saw healthy volumes (+57% YoY), jumping to the second spot globally in the first half of 2020.

“Huawei benefitted from significant demand for its smartwatches, especially the Watch GT2 series in its home market China and Asian markets, with shipment volumes growing 90% in both the regions,” he said.

Moreover, he said that Amazfit (+51% YoY) and Xiaomi (+47% YoY) made healthy strides during the first half with expanding portfolios and better geographic reach.

“China, India and the rest of Asia remain central to these brands’ growth story. Samsung faced some headwinds during the first half, but the launch of Galaxy Watch 3 in the second half could drum up some demand for the Korean vendor. Fitbit, Ticwatch and Suunto faced some tough competition from Garmin and Apple during the first half and will thus look forward to ramping up initiatives to ignite the demand during the holiday season,” he said.

Jeff Fieldhack, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said that Google WearOS accounted for 10% of the total smartwatch market, behind Apple WatchOS.

“Huawei’s Lite OS and Amazfit’s Amazfit OS are growing fast. Further, the cellular-capable smartwatch is becoming more popular and accounts for more than one in four smartwatches shipped, benefitting the likes of Qualcomm,” he said.

Square form-factor in demand

The research shows that heart-rate monitoring is now featured in almost 60% of the smartwatches while square form-factor accounted for almost two-thirds of the smartwatches globally.

“Fall detection and SPO2 are the features that should see mass-adoption in future models. The massive leaps in battery life and processing power are helping to better track overall health as continual heartrate, sleep and other monitoring can be done instead of the device sitting on a charger. The leaps in solar charging technology will also help OEMs concentrate on better monitoring. We expect to continue to see a focus on fitness and wellness applications,” Fieldhack said.