By Kate Yuan

The shipments of wearables in China dropped by 23.3% year on year to 28.57 million units in the second quarter of 2022, according to IDC’s report on the Chinese wearables market released on September 22.

The headphone market shipped 16.18 million units in Q2 2022, down 23.2% year on year. Among them, the shipments of true wireless headsets reached 12.73 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 22.1%.

The number of smartwatch shipments was 8.46 million units in Q2 2022, down 12.3% year on year. About 4.23 million units of adult watches were shipped, down 14.5% year on year, while the rest of 4.24 million units were children’s watches, down 10.0% over the previous year.

As for the wristband market, the shipments were 3.83 million units, a 40.2% drop in Q2 2022.

IDC pointed out that the rise high-end adult watch market, which has the most development potential in the wearables market, was particularly obvious in H1 2022. Shipments of adult watches above RMB 2,000 ($279, tax excluded) continued to grow in H1 2022, 29% more over the last year.

It is especially important for mobile phone manufacturers to increase the proportion of high-end mobile phone users, thus tapping the adult watch market, said an industry insider.