Report: Wearables Market Grew Almost 18 Percent

According to a report recently released by IDC, Apple and Xiaomi are now joint kings of the wearables realm. But wait -- what happened to Fitbit? The company is actually going through a bit of a slump right now, which led to Apple and Xiaomi gladly taking advantage. Both Apple and Xiaomi shipped 3.6 million units of wearable devices during the first three months of this year. Its Q1 2017 numbers saw the iPhone maker register an incredible 64.1 percent growth. As for Xiaomi, the Chinese tech giant’s numbers have actually declined 3.3 percent.

Still, the worldwide wearables industry has reason to celebrate. Global shipments, after all, improved from 20.9 million units during the first quarter a year ago, to 24.7 million units in the same period this year. That improvement represents a growth of 17.9 percent. Although overall shipments are on the rise, former market leader Fitbit saw its numbers drop, with its shipments decreasing 37.7 percent. 

So what is going on with Fitbit? As explained by Ramon Llamas from IDC, the brand found itself a victim of the changing preferences of wearables users. A few years ago, the concept of wearables mainly refer to fitness bands, but buoyed by the release of the Apple Watch a few years ago, people are now becoming more aware of smartwatches.

Still, Fitbit is far from being out of the fight yet. The company, after all, still managed to ship 3 million units of wearables, which is not far behind compared to Apple’s and Xiaomi’s 3.6 million units. And it is easy to forget that as a fairly established wearables brand, Fitbit’s customer base is estimated at about 50 million across the globe. Moreover, with emerging mobile markets beginning to buy wearable devices, it is a good bet that they will find Fitbit’s fitness bands appealing.

As for Xiaomi, it did most of its work in its native homeland -- China. As a matter of fact, IDC’s report states that over 96 percent of the Chinese tech giant’s shipments (mainly consisting fitness trackers and wrist bands) were in the Chinese mobile market. And the company is aggressively going forward, with a plan to diversity beyond wrist wear, and even start exploring smart sports wear shoes, in collaboration with Intel’s Curie.

By the way, rounding off the top five in the world is Samsung (with 1.4 million units of wearables shipped) and Garmin (with 1.1 million units shipped).