Smartwatches: Apple Watch will lead market growth until 2023

The smartwatches market will continue to grow strongly until 2023, accentuating the dominance of Apple Watch. These could secure 25.9% market share at the end of the period, according to IDC's projections. A market share two times lower than the 50% enjoyed by the brand in 2018 – and which shows in appearance a rapid erosion of brand dominance. On the other hand, competition has intensified, but the large number of players means that none of them is yet able to reach comparable market shares. And the situation does not seem to change.

The smartwatches market will still be dominated for a long time by Apple and its Apple Watch. Even if for three years, the market shares of the brand are eroding rapidly: Apple Watch accounted for more than 60% of the market in 2017 and 50% in 2018. By 2023, this market share should fall to 25.9% according to the latest IDC projection. A figure slightly revised downwards – a previous projection provided for a market share of 27.5% at the same date. On the other hand, competition is split up between a multitude of actors struggling to reach comparable figures. A situation that IDC badysts do not see improving in 5 years: "A gap separates the competition from Apple […] Android plays an important role here, but trails a reputation as a platform of Chinese wearables », says Ramon T. Llamas, Director of Wearable Studies at IDC, quoted by CNET.

The smartwatches market will still be dominated by the Apple Watch

In addition to Android and watchOS competing operating systems like Tizen, even completely proprietary solutions at some manufacturers should also participate in the fragmentation of the sector. More broadly, the wearables segment – which includes smartwatches, wireless headsets, and activity tracers – is expected to be up to 302.3 million units by 2023. The sector is expected to remain largely dominated by headphones audio and smartwatches – the latter already accounting for 41.2% of wearable sales, a proportion that is expected to reach 43.5% in 2023. Thus, in 2019, 91.8 million smartwatches are expected to flow – a figure that will reach 131.6 million units in 2023.

Combined, these two product categories will account for 78.3% of the market in 2023. The activity tracers, they should progress much more modestly, to 18.2%, only + 0.3% over the period. Even if the Apple Watch crushes the market of smartwatch and wearables in general, note that some players still manage to pull themselves together. Recently, we learned for example that the smartwatch brands that are currently making the fastest progress are Samsung and Fitbit: the first reached 11.1% in the first quarter of 2019 compared to 7.2% a year earlier while the second rose from 3.7% to 5.5% over the same period.

Read also: Smartwatch – Germany asks parents to destroy connected watches of their children!

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