The wearables shipments grew 10.8 percent to 171 million units in the fourth quarter of 2021 and rose 20 percent to 533.6 million units in 2021, according to IDC.
Hearables shipment grew 9.6 percent during the quarter and accounted for almost two-thirds of the entire wearables market.

“The supply cruch forced many companies to think about services and this is likely going to play a key role in the wearbles market moving forward as OEMs can experiment with their business models by subsidzing the hardware purchase though on-going services revenue,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.

Apple has retained the number 1 position as it captured 34.9 percent share during Q4. Broad availability of the Series 7 watches after being delayed from Q3 to Q4 of 2021 and the launch of the AirPods 3 helped drive Apple’s growth.

With Xiaomi’s wristbands in decline, the company has been able to grow and preserve its position as a market leader by focusing on watches, which doubled in volume during the quarter, as well as hearables.

Samsung managed to gain 3 percentage points in the smartwatch market after promoting the Galaxy Watch 4 Series during the holiday season through discounts and trade-in offers. Samsung’s hearables business faced slowdown with shipments growing 4.3 percent.

China-based Huawei’s growth was 35.6 percent thanks to its strong traction outside China thanks to aggressive marketing. European-bound shipments represented 29 percent of Huawei’s portfolio during the 2021 holiday season, up from 19.9 percent in the prior year.

Imagine Marketing’s BoAt brand is in the top 5 position thanks to the growth of all wearables within India.

True wireless stereo (TWS) shipments increased 21 percent to 103.8 million in Q4 2021, according to Canalys estimates. Smart personal audio shipments grew 7.7 percent to 151.4 million in Q4 2021.