Apple hot on Fitbit’s heels as global wearable sales soar

The report indicates that Fitbit remained the world’s largest wearable manufacturer by units shipped. Xiaomi positioned itself just below Apple in the rankings, being estimated to have shipped 3.7 million wearables during the quarter, an 815% YoY increase. However, this says less about Fitbit’s performance as a company and more about the explosive growth fitness wearables.

Coming in third is China’s Xiaomi, whose Mi Band is proving popular in its home market, helping it to ship 3.7 million units, good enough for a 17.4% share of the wearables market.

Fitbit’s market share accounted for 22.2 per cent of the market in the third quarter of 2015, while Apple followed closely behind with 18.6 per cent, showing strong interest in the Apple Watch in the year of launch.

Chinese vendors in general appear to have leaped onto the wearable bandwagon, said Ramon Llamas, research manager at IDC. As shipments for both categories of wearable devices increased quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) as well as YoY, it shows that both categories can co-exist. IDC said the average smartwatch price was around $400, while basic bands and trackers averaged $94.

Other key trends noticeable in the latest quarterly results include the fact that China has quickly emerged as the fastest-growing wearables market, attracting companies eager to compete on price and feature sets.

The IDC report attributes the increase in Apple Watch sales from the previous quarter to Apple entering additional markets and expanding to additional sales channels such as Best Buy. This also benefits consumers, as they have more choice: from simple fitness gadgets to full-fledged smartphone-type experience. This is a slight increase over the 3.6 million devices the IDC estimated Apple sold during the second quarter of 2015 for what was then a 20 percent share of the market. In addition to this, Apple released watchOS 2, enabling native third-party apps for the Watch.