Luxury Portable Consumer Electronics in Japan

2021 DEVELOPMENTS

Increased health awareness further accelerates growth

Whilst other personal luxury categories saw a significant hit from COVID-19 in 2020 and stagnated in 2021, due to their discretionary nature and limited occasions for going out, luxury portable consumer electronics posted healthy growth. However, it should be noted that sales of luxury mobile phones remain negligible, with luxury portable consumer electronics completely dominated by luxury wearables.

Competition or collaboration?

Despite not being a luxury brand, Sony’s wearable device, wena wrist, launched in 2016, has formed multiple successful collaborations. In 2020, wena wrist collaborated with Seiko’s Brightz, as well as Citizen’s Promaster, to launch new smartwatches that have quartz analogue heads by the timepieces manufacturers and a wearable band from Sony.

Tag Heuer launches its own wellness app and specialised golf edition

On the other hand, exclusivity is still an important factor for luxury brands. In 2020, the strong leader in luxury wearables, Tag Heuer, focused on golf players and developed a smartwatch and application that is exclusively designed for golf players.

PROSPECTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Robust growth expected, due to replacement cycle and entry of new users

Over the forecast period, luxury wearables in Japan is expected to post robust although slowing growth, as the replacement cycle for these products is usually shorter than for analogue watches, at 5-10 years, and consumers who joined the market amidst COVID-19 are likely to remain, as they are used to monitoring their health using wearable devices. Even after the global pandemic has eased, healthcare is expected to remain a top priority amongst consumers, especially because a large part of the population in Japan is entering their senior life stage and facing health concerns.

Digital health to further expand growth potential, but competition from non-luxury

Heightened health awareness amongst Japanese consumers is expected to continue over the forecast period, which will maintain consumer demand for luxury wearables. Experiencing the unprecedented global health crisis, consumers now want to monitor wider health indicators beyond just HBR (heartbeat rate) and number of steps.

5G opportunities to be gradual

Although the 5G network became available to the public in March 2020 in Japan, usage remains quite limited, as consumers need to own new devices that are able to use the 5G network. Japan already has a relatively stable 4G network across the nation, which limits the consumer motivation to upgrade their devices to 5G.