Wearable Devices Market to Hit 223 Million Units in 2019: IDC

The wearable market is expected to reach global shipments of 222.9 million units in 2019 with earwear and watches accounting for more than 70 percent of all wearable shipments by 2023, a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) suggests.

In its new Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker report, the IDC has said that watches are forecasted to grow from 91.8 million units in 2019 to 131.6 million in 2023, with Apple expected to capture 25.9 percent share of all watches in 2023.

On the other hand, ear-worn devices are expected to grow from 72 million units in 2019 to 105.3 million in 2023.

"Smartwatches, as always, will still tell you the time, but will move deeper into health and fitness and connect with multiple applications and systems, both at work and within the home," said Ramon T. Llamas, Research Director, wearables team, IDC.

"Ear-worn devices, while still centred on providing audio, will nudge into other areas like language translation, smart assistant deployment, and coaching."

However, IDC predicts that wristbands would see a flat shipment growth throughout the 2019-2023 forecast with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.3 percent.

The report predicts that wristbands shipments is expected to grow minutely from 54.2 million units in 2019 to just 55 million units in 2023.

Currently, Chinese brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei have been leading the wristband wearable market and more than half of all wristbands are expected to be shipped in China.