The second half of this year will see Meta, the largest VR device supplier, and Apple, the leader in smartwatches, release new wearables. We can also expect new products to be released by companies like Xiaomi and Samsung. So, the wearable device market will be a significant new battleground in the second half of the year, in addition to smartphones.
According to one of the industry insiders, Taiwan Economic Daily (via IThome), the market for wearable devices as a whole is still expanding and that major brands won’t give up easily. It’s anticipated that companies like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and even Meta will keep announcing new products. Its primary goal is to increase brand value and sell more ancillary services rather than hardware per se.
In a report by the research firm IDC, 530 million wearable devices will be shipped worldwide in 2021, a 20 percent increase from the previous year. The majority of the items sent are wristbands and watches. Apple has a significant advantage over its rivals when it comes to smartwatches. Apple Watch had a market share of 35% in the fourth quarter of last year, Xiaomi came in second with 8.6%, and Samsung came in third with 7.9%. About 6.7 percent of the market is taken by Huawei.
According to IDC statistics, 11.23 million AR/VR headsets were shipped globally last year, an increase of 92.1 percent year over year in terms of VR devices. One of them saw the first shipment of VR equipment surpassing 10 million units, coming in at 10.95 million. VR equipment shipments are anticipated to increase by 43.6 percent year over year to 15.73 million units this year. Among them, Meta, a top manufacturer of VR equipment, has an 80 percent market share for Oculus, which is significantly higher than that of other rivals.
Industry experts were quoted in the report as saying that since there weren’t many new wearable devices released in the first half of this year, new products released in the second half of the year are expected to attract buyers. However, if the global inflation problem continues to negatively impact the overall economy, sales of wearable devices may be discounted, and the follow-up market still needs to be closely observed.
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