How China's Open-Ear Audio and Action Camera Markets Were Reshaped in 2024

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More from this report: China's 3C Devices Market 2024: OWS Earphones and Action Cameras Drive a CN¥ 785B Market Forward

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Executive Summary#

Within China's CN¥ 785 billion 3C devices market, two subcategories stood out as the definitive growth stories of 2024: OWS (open-ear) earphones at +86.2% YoY (CN¥ 6.27 billion) and action cameras at +69.0% YoY (CN¥ 3.11 billion). Both segments share a common pattern --- domestically designed products expanding the category through AI integration, scenario-based product design, and content-led marketing. This deep-dive examines the product strategies, design choices, and channel dynamics that propelled these two categories, drawing on Moojing Market Intelligence data covering mainstream Chinese e-commerce platforms and a leading short-video platform.

OWS Earphones: The +86.2% Surge That Reshaped Audio#

The OWS earphone market's ascent from niche to mainstream is one of the most compelling product-market fit stories in China's consumer electronics sector. In 2024, category sales reached CN¥ 6.27 billion --- up from CN¥ 3.37 billion in 2023 --- with the critical detail that both average price and volume rose simultaneously. The market was not growing on discounts; it was growing on genuine demand expansion.

The FreeClip Effect: A New Form Factor Resets the Category#

Huawei's entry into OWS earphones via the FreeClip in November 2023 fundamentally altered the competitive landscape. Through 2024 the product sustained a steady monthly run-rate with no sign of post-launch decay --- and it did so at a price well above the category average, demonstrating that brand equity and industrial design can command premium pricing in a segment previously defined by specialist audio brands. The clip-on, non-occluding form factor was the substance of that premium: it made the earphone wearable for hours in settings where sealed in-ear designs are not.

Category growth of this magnitude does not distribute evenly. It concentrated in newly launched form factors and newly served use cases rather than spreading proportionally across long-established product lines. Shokz (韶音), the specialist that built open-ear audio into a mainstream category in China, continued to grow through the year on the strength of its sports franchise --- the category expanded far enough to make room for both a specialist and a platform-scale entrant.

China's open-ear earphone category reached CN¥ 6.27 billion in 2024

Three Usage Clusters Define the Market's Future#

The OWS segment's growth was not monolithic --- it emerged from three distinct usage clusters, each with different product requirements and different design winners:

Sports and outdoor activity dominated with 71.7% market penetration and CN¥ 3.94 billion in sales. Running, cycling, fitness, and swimming were the primary activities. Shokz's OpenRun Air S803 targeted swimmers specifically with its fully sealed, waterproof design, while Cleer's ARC 3 combined AI-powered gesture control with noise cancellation for active users. The sports cluster represents the most mature use case, but continued innovation in durability, waterproofing, and biometric integration keeps it expanding.

Office productivity emerged as the second growth vector, led by iFlytek (科大讯飞) and its Spark AI-powered meeting assistant. The iFLYBUDS Air earbuds featured on-device recording, 31-language translation, and AI-generated meeting summaries --- capabilities that position OWS earphones not as audio accessories but as workplace productivity tools. iFlytek's marketing leaned into "persona + scenario" storytelling: lawyers on business trips, researchers at academic conferences, executives in back-to-back meetings.

AI companionship represented the most nascent but potentially transformative cluster. ByteDance launched Ola Friend in October 2024, embedding its Doubao AI assistant into an OWS earphone form factor. The product supports voice-activated knowledge Q&A, English conversation practice, travel guidance, and emotional support --- positioning the earphone as a "cyber friend" rather than an audio device. The cluster is still early, but the concept of an AI companion in your ear is a category-expanding one: it gives an earphone a reason to be worn when no audio is playing.

Action Cameras: A +69.0% Year Built on Domestic Design#

The action camera market grew +69.0% YoY to CN¥ 3.11 billion in 2024, and the expansion was led by domestically designed products. Two design philosophies carried it: the pocketable, gimbal-stabilised content-creation camera, and the fully panoramic capture device that lets the framing decision be deferred to the edit. Neither existed in this form when the category was first defined a decade ago, and both were brought to market by Chinese design teams iterating on an annual cadence.

Innovation Velocity Outweighs Brand Heritage#

Price has stopped being the axis of competition in this segment. Domestically designed flagships and imported ranges sit at broadly comparable price points, so the differentiator is release cadence and ecosystem integration --- how quickly AI-enhanced stabilisation, subject tracking and one-tap editing move from a demo into a shipping product, and how completely the camera, the phone app and the editing workflow behave as one system. DJI's Osmo Pocket 3 and Osmo Action 5 Pro launched with exactly that integration. For any brand competing in China's 3C market, the lesson is structural: heritage does not substitute for iteration speed once domestic competitors match on build quality.

Five of the eleven brands covered outpaced their own subcategory's 2024 growth rate

The Content-to-Commerce Pipeline#

Short-video strategy exemplifies the content-led marketing model that is proving most effective in China's 3C sector. DJI's official account created dedicated video series tailored to each camera line: the Pocket series focused on vlog creation tutorials and cinematic techniques, accumulating 27.0 million views; the Action series highlighted extreme sports and adventure scenarios, reaching 32.0 million views. These were not product advertisements --- they were aspirational content that happened to feature the products, driving discovery through entertainment value rather than promotional messaging.

The line-up was built to cover two different buyers. The Osmo Pocket 3 anchored the premium content-creation end at CN¥ 3,499, positioned as a tool for vloggers and travel photographers; the Osmo Action 4 and Action 5 Pro addressed the rugged, outdoor segment at CN¥ 2,098 and CN¥ 2,598 respectively. That portfolio approach --- covering both pocket-friendly content creation and extreme-sports durability --- let a single brand serve both the creator and the athlete without asking either to compromise.

360-Degree Differentiation#

Insta360 carved out a distinct positioning through its 8K full-panoramic capabilities, starting with the X4 launch in April 2024 at CN¥ 3,499. The product's emphasis on resolution, stabilization, and waterproofing attracted content creators seeking cinematic quality from a portable device, and the panoramic format changed the shooting workflow itself: point the camera roughly, choose the frame afterwards. Insta360's marketing leaned heavily into short-video, partnering with digital lifestyle, extreme sports, and travel creators who could visually demonstrate the camera's immersive output --- a natural fit for the format.

Common Patterns: What OWS Earphones and Action Cameras Share#

Despite operating in different product categories, the OWS earphone and action camera markets share four structural growth drivers:

• Premium positioning, not discounting. In both categories the products driving the narrative sit at premium price points. The era of Chinese brands winning exclusively on price is over --- and both categories grew on demand expansion rather than on price cuts.

• AI as a feature differentiator. From iFlytek's meeting transcription to DJI's image stabilization algorithms, AI integration creates tangible user benefits that justify higher average prices and build switching costs.

• Scenario-based product design. Products are designed around specific activities (swimming, cycling, vlogging, office meetings) rather than generic feature checklists. This scenario-first approach enables brands to build targeted marketing narratives and authentic community engagement.

• Content-led channel strategy. Both categories show short-video as the primary discovery and engagement channel, with brands investing in educational and aspirational content rather than traditional product advertising. The content-to-commerce pipeline --- create entertaining content that features the product in action, then convert viewers into buyers --- is the dominant go-to-market model.

Strategic Takeaway#

For brands competing in or entering China's 3C wearable and portable electronics categories, the data from 2024 is unambiguous: the winners are those that combine premium positioning with AI-enabled features, design for specific usage scenarios, and build content ecosystems on social platforms. The market rewards innovation velocity over brand heritage, domestic design sensitivity over imported specifications, and scenario authenticity over feature-list marketing.

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Download the full report: 2024 Whitepaper: China's 3C Devices Market Analysis --- includes category deep-dives, channel-level analysis, and product-level case studies across the report's 3C device subcategories.

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