Wearable shipments have been on a tear in 2015 and Q3 proved to be no exception. In its latest Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, IDC reports that wearable shipments reached the 21 million unit mark. This is nearly three times more than the 7.1 million units shipped back in Q3 2014.
“The early stages of the wearables market have led to tight competition among the leading vendors, and Chinese vendors have seized upon market momentum to grab market share,” noted Ramon Llamas , Research Manager for IDC’s Wearables team. “China has quickly emerged as the fastest-growing wearables market, attracting companies eager to compete on price and feature sets. In addition, multiple vendors have experimented with a broad range of products and applications. The challenge, however, is whether these vendors can expand their presence, as few have extended beyond the country’s borders and into other markets.”
IDC also notes that it appears that smartwatches do not appear to be cannibalizing sales of other wearables. Shipments of smartwatches and fitness trackers both grew, suggesting that the two categories can co-exist (at least for now). Pricing may well be helping this as smartwatches traditionally cost more than basic fitness trackers.
The top four manufacturers remained unchanged from Q2. Despite some predictions that Apple would leap to first place, it remains in second place behind Fitbit with 3.9 million devices shipped to Fitbit’s 4.7 million. Both saw increases in their shipments over Q2. Xiaomi and Garmin held on to third and fourth places but Samsung slipped out of the top five, pushed out by Chinese vendor XTC, a subsidiary of BBK. Most interesting is how XTC managed to displace Samsung on the strength of a single product, Y01, a children’s phone watch.
With the holiday season upon us, we can expect wearable shipments to show further growth in Q4.
Source : IDC