Jiwei Network News A few days ago, IDC released the "Quarterly Tracking Report of China's Wearable Device Market in the Third Quarter of 2021". According to the report, China's wearable device market shipments in the third quarter of 2021 were 35.28 million units, an increase of 5.0% year-on-year. The market growth rate has declined significantly, mainly due to three reasons: weak market demand, unclear product positioning and partial supply pressure.
It is worth mentioning that among all kinds of wearable devices, the ear wear device market shipped 19.9 million units, an increase of 40.0% year-on-year. The market is driven by low-priced segment products and still maintains a rapid growth rate. With the focus of more mobile phone manufacturers, the growth of the true wireless market will be particularly significant.
A TWS headset industry insider also told Jiwei Network that first of all, the major brands have become more and more perfect in the TWS headset product line in the past two years, and users can choose more products; secondly, with the increase in shipments, many functions that originally appeared on high-end models have gradually penetrated into low-cost products; finally, users in many countries and regions have indeed taken "cost performance" as an important criterion for choosing TWS headphones this year.
The number of brand high imitation orders has plummeted
Based on the changes mentioned above, the demand for supply chains in end markets has also changed. In the process of rapid growth in the TWS headset market, cottage products are also an indispensable part of the industry; once in the early stage of market development, manufacturers engaged in the manufacture and sale of cottage products can be said to have made a lot of money.
The above-mentioned industry insiders told Jiwei Network: "The early market demand for high-imitation brand headphones was very large, and factory orders were full; but once the sales of such products increased, the interest discount to the genuine products was also more serious, so the brand's suppression of cottage products in the past two years has been increasing." On the one hand, it is through legal channels, on the other hand, it is to increase the coverage of its own products on the full price segment. ”
Jiwei network learned from a manufacturer of high-imitation products that the most popular of all brand cottages is the Airpods series, in order to reduce the impact of cottage products on sales, Apple has been strictly investigating and controlling in recent years. In addition, the author also noticed that the prices of products on major e-commerce platforms have also decreased year by year. The author searched for the second generation of AirPods through JD.com, and the price after the product discount has been as low as more than 700 yuan.
Other brands in the low-priced products of the variety is more dazzling, the author inquired about the ZOL official website found that in all the brands of TWS headphones included in it, only less than 200 yuan of products as many as 1814 models. The top three on the hot list are Lenovo LP80, Redmi Airdots 2 and Wanderer LolliPods, with prices of 104 yuan, 79 yuan and 158 yuan respectively.
Not only that, but there are 507 TWS headphones equipped with noise reduction functions in 1814 products. Lenovo LP80 and Redmi Airdots 2 are still included in the top three of the hot list, including Redmi Buds3, which is priced at 159 yuan.
(Image source: screenshot of ZOL's official website)
Under such a situation, small factories that mainly rely on copycat product orders to survive are struggling.
The aforementioned manufacturers revealed: "The first two years of business is the hottest, although one year is not as good as a year, but compared with this year, our order situation last year can still be regarded as maintaining the operation of the factory." Since the beginning of this year, the order volume of the entire factory has been reduced by more than half, mainly because the demand for high-imitation orders for brand headphones has been greatly reduced. ”
The living space of small and medium-sized factories is under pressure
As the industry knows, the performance of the smart phone market this year is quite sluggish, and for mobile phone brand manufacturers, they have to seek more performance growth points. Therefore, this year's TWS headphone product line has also become an important point of strength for many brands.
As IDC mentioned in the report, thanks to the active layout of more and more mobile phone manufacturers in the field of headphones, in the case of poor performance in other wearable device markets, the shipments of ear-worn devices this year are still driven by low-priced segment products, achieving a year-on-year increase of 40%.
Analysts told Jiwei Network: "The fastest growth rate this year is actually the Android camp brand headphones, and the products of major manufacturers basically cover the three price segments of low, medium and high. Even many low-cost products also use a good configuration, which is enough for most users to meet their daily use needs. With both brand protection and cost-effective advantages, users are bound to be more favored, which is inevitable in the consumer electronics market. ”
In the face of the menacing brand camp, both the copycat white brand manufacturers and their supply chains have become powerless to compete. "Now almost all the resources are tilting to the brand camp, and the concentration of industry share will become higher and higher, just like the mobile phone industry, in the future, the big factories must be busy, and the small factories will be directly 'finished'." The manufacturer of high-imitation headphones mentioned earlier sighed.
The manufacturer also revealed to Jiwei Network that the "shuffle" of the TWS headset industry has begun to accelerate since last year. Under the Matthew effect of the industry, many small factories have been closed one after another and forced to change careers. "While orders may still be supportive for most medium-sized suppliers, we see more of them reducing staff, reducing costs, and reducing capacity."
Even so, as the penetration rate of TWS headphones continues to increase, the growth of market size is bound to slow down further, and the degree of share concentration will continue to deepen at that time. It is conceivable that in the next 3 years, the development of the TWS headset industry will become more and more mature, and it is bound to embark on the same track as the development of the mobile phone industry - after a larger scale of survival of the fittest, the market share of both the terminal and the supply chain will eventually be highly concentrated. (Proofreading | new)