Like your smart wearable gadgets? Chances are they were made in Shenzhen. A recent report by a government think tank in China said that about 80% of the world’s smart wearable devices are manufactured in the southeastern Chinese port city and manufacturing hub.
Shenzhen, the base camp of many Chinese tech giants, is the biggest R&D (research and development) and production center for smart wearables, according to the report published last Friday by the China Center for Information Industry Development.
Shipments of smart wearable devices in China reached 73.2 million units in 2018, up 28.5% from the previous year. Globally, 172.2 million smart wearables were shipped last year.
Headphones and smart watches are the most popular smart wearable gadgets. Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple, BBK Electronics. and Qihoo 360 are the top five Chinese market leaders.
While Shenzhen is at the heart of smart wearable production, Dongguan, a much smaller city nearby that was once dubbed “the world’s factory,” manufactured 368 million smartphones last year. The city alone accounts for more than 92% of all Chinese smartphone shipments and the annual revenues for the three local smartphone majors—Huawei, Oppo and Vivo—exceeded RMB 506 billion (USD 75.4 billion) in 2018.