Shipments of wearable devices fell 18.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 138.7 million units, according to IDC report.
Shipments of wearable devices in 2022 dropped 7.7 percent, marking the first year of decline for the category due to challenging macroeconomic conditions and difficult comparisons to the strong results of 2021.
Despite the downturn, overall shipments of 492.1 million units in 2022 were well above 2020 and 2019 levels.
Top suppliers in the global wearable devices markets are: Apple with shipment of 146.3 million, Samsung (43.1 million), Xiaomi (34.7 million), Huawei (33.3 million) and Imagine Marketing (29.3 million) in 2022.
Smartwatches grew 9.4 percent during 2022, reaching an all-time high of 148.6 million units with Apple in the lead. Huawei and Samsung captured the second and third positions in the smartwatch sub-market while India’s Nexxbase and Fire-Boltt rounded out the global top 5 thanks to their value-oriented products sold within India.
Hearables, the largest category of wearables, declined almost 10 percent as 2021 provided tough year-over-year comparisons while wrist bands, the third largest category, also continued to see shipments decline due to competition from smartwatches.
