In a major boost to Asia’s third-largest economy’s towering ambitions to dominate the smart devices market, India’s homegrown brands now comprise 55 percent of the country’s accessories’ space, data by market intelligence-major IDC India showed. The accessories’ space includes hearables, wearables, and power accessories.
IDC India attributed the dominance of Indian wearable brands to new launches, discounts across channels, and aggressive marketing by brands. Following this, despite overall pessimism in the smartphone manufacturing space due to fears of global recession, the Indian wearable brands are reportedly doubling down on manufacturing and subsequent expansion.
Of the top five wearable brands in the country, the top three are Indian brands. They are Imagine Marketing (BoAt) with over 32 percent, Nexxbase (Noise) with close to 14 percent share, and Fire-Boltt with close to 9 percent share.
China-headquartered OnePlus (more than 8 percent) and Realme (more than 4 percent) also make it among the top five wearable brands in India.
Why Indian brands are dominating the smart accessories’ space?
During the last few years that had COVID-19 pandemic challenging the growth ambitions of industries worldwide, the existing smartphone players were widely expected to take over a significant pie of wearables’ market in India. The Chinese brands, which sit over about 62 percent share of India’s smartphone market couldn’t make strides into new segments like wearables.
“I think a lot of smartphone players because the opportunity was so much bigger in smartphones, remained focused on smartphones with 4G and now 5G coming in, especially during the pandemic when they had to handle supply chain disruptions,” Vivek Gambhir, CEO at Imagine Marketing (BOAT).
“They were focused on their existing markets and weren’t really looking at creating new markets,” he added.