This is a ‘Go Figure, Sherlock’ moment as IDC predicts the following for the global wearables market this year
Watches and wristbands will be negatively impacted in the short term and we anticipate a 13% decline collectively during the first quarter as many factories in China struggle with manufacturing due to labor and component shortages,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC Mobile Device Trackers.
Similarly, a decline of 7.1% is expected in the second quarter followed by mild recovery in second half of the year as supply constraints slowly begin to disappear and manufacturing returns to normal.
Source: IDC
Here is the forecast data from IDC. This data is EX-FACTORY data, which means that it reflects shipped production rather than consumer sales. Any hit to shipments will be mostly due to supply chain disruptions. Despite all the current woes, you can see that IDC is still expecting growth of approximately 50% between now and 2024.
|
Worldwide Wearables Shipments, Market Share, and Five-Year CAGR, 2020 and 2024 (shipments in millions) |
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|
Product |
2020 Shipments |
2020 Share |
2024 Shipments |
2024 Share |
2020—2024 CAGR |
||||||||||
|
Earwear/Hearables |
203.8 |
55.4% |
301.5 |
57.2% |
10.3% |
||||||||||
|
Watches |
95.0 |
25.8% |
149.5 |
28.4% |
11.4% |
||||||||||
|
Wristbands |
65.1 |
17.7% |
69.8 |
13.3% |
1.8% |
||||||||||
|
Others |
4.3 |
1.2% |
6.0 |
1.1% |
8.7% |
||||||||||
|
Total |
368.2 |
100.0% |
526.8 |
100.0% |
9.4% |
||||||||||
|
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, March 2020 |
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Some of the detail in the report, not shown here, is that Wear OS is expected to grow steadily to “16.9% of the smartwatch market by 2024“. Battery life is still expected to be an issue for non-sport watches and hence IDC also predicts that hybrid watches, such as those offered by Withings and Fossil, will continue to grow.
Last Updated on 17 January 2026 by the5krunner
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors.
