The smart wearables market has seen a boom recently. These are technological wearable items such as watches, rings, bracelets, smart glasses, and devices attached to clothes.

According to Gartner, the spending of global users on smart wearables reached $81.5 billion in 2021. The market began growing in 2019. 

However, despite the global recession and predicted weaker demand as people have cut spending on unnecessary things, Garmin Vietnam launched a new smartwatch – Approach S70 – on June 28.

Dao Cong Thanh, business director of Garmin Vietnam, said that in the first two quarters of the year, the demand for electronics and mobile devices from Vietnamese users was weak.

However, in the market segment of wearables, reports still showed growth. IDC showed that the annual growth rate of smart wearables in Vietnam is about 30 percent, according to Thanh.

The expert emphasized two characteristics of the watch market: purchase of smartwatches at VND5-10 million, and a shift to smartwatches instead of traditional watches.

As for smart wearables, there are three major groups of clients. The first group comprises those who need a device to keep watch over their health conditions, for example, heart rate and blood oxygen.

The second group of clients want features that support sports, such as running, bicycling, swimming and golf.

The clients of the third group want wearables with smart features such as listening, making calls, messaging and contactless payment.

According to a representative of Gamin Vietnam, Vietnamese smartwatch users are mostly interested in watching over health conditions and smart features. The number of clients in the second group is smaller, but is growing rapidly year by year. 

“Many athletes and amateur players pay serious attention to sports. They tend to use smart wearables to serve their practice,” he commented, adding that during the pandemic, users wanted the devices that supported practice at home, but now they prefer the devices that support outdoors activities.

While some analysts keep pessimistic about the domestic market, saying that very few people show interest in available smartwatch models, others believe that the market would grow very rapidly.

Thanh said that this is a potential market. Though the Vietnamese market just began growing in recent years, its growth rate is higher than the average growth rate of the whole region.

Trong Dat