Apple led in sales of earwear devices, smartwatches last year in the Middle East and Africa

The Middle East and Africa wearables market experienced strong annual growth in both unit and value terms for the whole of 2022, according to newly published insights from International Data Corporation (IDC). And Apple did exceptionally well.

The latest edition of the Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Devices Tracker shows that shipments to the region in 2022 grew 9.8% year-on- year (YoY) to total 14.89 million units, with the market’s value increasing 25.4% to $2.86 billion.

IDC says the unit growth can largely be attributed to a 13.6% YoY increase in shipments of earwear devices, which accounted for 50.6% of total wearable shipments to the region in 2022. The earwear segment was dominated by Apple’s AirPods (first) and Samsung (second), with these two vendors accounting for a combined unit share of more than 40%. The Chinese vendor Xaiomi placed third.

The overall market’s value growth was primarily driven by a 45.7% YoY increase in the value of smartwatch shipments to the region. These devices accounted for 60.6% share of the total wearable market’s value in 2022. In unit terms, Apple led the smartwatch category in 2022, followed by Samsung in second place and Huawei in third, as the latter continues to update its product portfolio to compensate for the drop-off it has experienced in the mobile phone market.