Fitness bands drive wearable market in India: IDC

Wearable market in India clocked just over 400,000 units sold in Q1 2016, driven largely by fitness bands with 87.7 per cent market share whereas smart wearables such as smartwatches contributed to around 12.3 per cent, says an International Data Corporation (IDC) report.

"The expected launch of affordable smartwatches in the second half of 2016 could see a rapid growth in the share of smart devices," said Swapnil Bhatnagar, Research Director, IDC India, in a statement.

Though the smart wearables remained low at 12.3 per cent, a higher growth rate compared to basic devices is expected in near future.

The first two positions were grabbed by Samsung and Motorola while Apple stood third due to channel-related issues.

The online channel was the most preferred means for majority of the vendors. However, a shift towards retail is also being observed as customers are looking to physically feel and test out the product.

Fitbit and Apple are the only two brands that are widely present in physical stores; the other brands have either limited or no offline presence, the report by the US market research and analysis firm, noted.

The penetration of wearables is still low, and vendors are investing in the continuous development of products to provide better value to users.

"The increase in volume is giving more scope to the vendors to come up with better features such as display and NFC.

Both Intex's recently launched Fitrist and Xiaomi's soon-to-be-launched Mi Band 2 come with a display at affordable prices," added Bhatnagar.

--IANS

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