India’s smartwatch market is growing, but that depends on how you look at it.

Gadgets 360 senior reviewers Ali Pardiwala and Aditya Shenoy, and IDC India research director Navkendar Singh join host Akhil Arora to talk about that and more.

As with all things tech, India remains a cost-sensitive market, with average selling price in fact going down in recent years, Singh tells us. Low-cost smartwatches have taken over from fitness bands (while the premium segment struggles).

That’s because these ‘basic’ watches — Rs. 4,000 or less — are cramming in a lot of features, though they naturally don’t naturally fare well in accuracy. But does the Indian consumer care?

Read: The best smartwatches to buy in India

For those who do, you’re going to have to pay a lot — with premium watches from Apple and Samsung coming in at 5–10 times the price. They’re in the ecosystem play, which could’ve been Google’s were it not for its failures with WearOS.

Hit play to hear us delve into each of those facets.

Follow Gadgets 360 on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Write to us at podcast@gadgets360.com

Chapters

• Intro (00:00)
• How India is faring (00:24)
• The market split (05:00)
• Bands are dead (11:24)
• What Indians want (14:50)
• Buying advice (23:57)
• Ecosystem play (29:32)
• Outro (32:41)

Cover: Samsung. Photo credits: Noise, Realme, Xiaomi, Fire Boltt, Ali Pardiwala/Gadgets 360, Apple