Apple Watch will remain the king of wearables

Jun 20, 2019 13:45 GMT  ·  By

A new forecast published by research firm IDC indicates that the Apple Watch will remain the king of wearables, while models powered by Google’s WearOS or Samsung’s Tizen will be trailing behind.

IDC says the wearables market overall will reach 302.3 million units in 2023, up from 222.9 million units estimated for 2019, with smartwatches and ear-worn devices, like smart headphones, to account for no less than 70 percent.

Smartwatches, in particular, will represent a market clearly dominated by the Apple Watch with a share of 25.9%, followed by all the other platforms like Android, WearOS, and Tizen. A total of 131.6 million smartwatches are expected to be sold in 2023, IDC says.

“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. Ear-worn devices, while still centered on providing audio, will nudge into other areas like language translation, smart assistant deployment, and coaching,” said Ramon T. Llamas, research director for IDC's Wearables team.

Wristband adoption to stagnate

While the adoption of smartwatches will skyrocket in the coming years, not the same thing can be said about wristbands, which will experience a flat shipment growth.

“Chinese brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei have been leading this market and more than half of all wristbands are expected to be shipped in China. Meanwhile, mature markets such as North America and Western Europe are expected to see declining shipments as users transition to smartwatches,” the company says.

Ear-worn devices, like the AirPods, will continue growing, and the forecast shows that shipments in this market could reach 105.3 million units in 2023, up from the estimated number of 72 million units in 2019. More advanced capabilities are expected, like assistance for hearing loss, in addition to features that are already implemented, such as support for digital assistants.