Canalys: India's smart audio device shipments grew 55% in Q2 2022

According to the latest forecast from Canalys, global shipments of smart personal audio devices fell 1.7% year-on-year to 98.1 million units in the second quarter of 2022. India, the world's third largest smart personal audio market, bucked the trend with a sharp increase in shipments of 55%. But India's growth was not enough to offset the overall global decline, with the United States down 1% and China down 13%. True wireless stereo (TWS) was the only growing smart personal audio branch, with shipments increasing 8% to 63 million units. India was the main driver of TWS growth. Despite the increase in shipments, the global TWS market fell 2.9% in value, suggesting that the challenging macroeconomic environment hurt suppliers' profits.

Consumers in India are rapidly turning to TWS, causing the growth of the wireless headset category to slow down to 11.1%. TWS shipments in India increased by 217.9% to 7 million units, accounting for 11% of global shipments, a record high.

“Without India’s impressive growth, the global TWS market would have declined,” said Canalys analyst Ashweej Aithal. “India’s huge demand for smart personal audio devices is something that both local and global players can capitalize on. But in an increasingly challenging economic environment, vendors must rethink their strategies in this highly competitive market.”

boAt leads the Indian TWS market with a market share of 47%. Noise and OPPO (including OnePlus) rank in the top three, all achieving three-digit growth rates of 508% and 583% respectively.

Apple continues to lead the global TWS market. Although the AirPods TWS series shipment growth slowed to 2% with 15.3 million units shipped, improved performance of its audio sub-brand Beats by Dre helped it achieve an overall shipment growth of 13.1% in the second quarter.

"Apple will rely on its much-anticipated new AirPods Pro model to drive shipment and revenue growth in its wearables, home and accessories categories in the coming quarters," said Canalys research analyst Sherry Jin. "To drive replacements and new buyers, the next generation of AirPods Pro must not only improve on basic features such as battery life and sound performance, but also offer new utility factors such as unique ecosystem-integrated content consumption and health tracking capabilities."