As expected, India's TWS market registered a massive growth of 723% YoY in Q3 2020, according to Counterpoint. The market research firm says it is one of the few segments which managed to escape the impact of economic slowdown due to the pandemic. It is also the highest ever market growth in shipments for a single quarter. Xiaomi's affordable Redmi Earbuds 2C became the best seller in the quarter that ended on September 30, 2020. However, the market leader is boAt, followed by Xiaomi and Realme. Apple managed to sneak into the top five, largely due to the increase in Apple AirPods shipments.
boAt Leads the TWS Market in India Followed by Xiaomi
In a surprising turn of events, boAt, one of the prominent brands in the audio market became the No.1 player by expanding its portfolio and launching many devices across price tiers during the quarter. The boAt Airdopes 441 is the company's best-selling model grabbed the second spot in the top list for model shipments. Counterpoint says the boAt Airdopes 441 grabbed the customer attention with features like water resistance, better sound quality, USB Type-C port and up to 25 hours of battery life.
Moving on, we have Xiaomi at the second spot with a market share of 16%. The Chinese company launched the affordable Redmi Earbuds 2C at just Rs 1,299 (the promotional price of Rs 999), and it is the top-selling model during the quarter. The Redmi Earbuds 2C was launched in September and it became the best-selling model in the initial quarter of launch.
Realme stood on the third spot with a market share of 12%. Counterpoint predicts that Realme's drop in market share is due to the lack of no new launches from the brand in Q3 2020. The best-selling models for the company were Realme Buds Q and Realme Buds Air Neo, which are on the third and fourth spots in the overall top-selling list.
JBL grabbed the fourth position with 9% share, whereas Cupertino giant Apple was on the fifth spot with 6% share. The Apple AirPods (2nd Gen) model also found a place in the top five list for model shipments. Not including earbuds inside the latest iPhones will only help Apple to further increase its market share.
The TWS market in India is getting competitive with every passing day as more and more brands are entering the segment. In the last few months, we saw brands like OnePlus, Vivo, Oppo and Infinix joining the already existing brands.