The smart wearable market grew by 27% in 2018 with Apple continuing to rule the global wearable market. Apple held its top place with 26.8% sales of the entire market in 2018, while Xiaomi and Huawei saw a growth in their sales compared to 2017.
International Data Corporation has included ear-worn devices into its wearable category as long as they are able to trigger a voice assistant without the need of a smartphone. Google and Apple released Pixel Buds and AirPods respectively as their ear-worn smart device.
Apple shipped 46.2 million smart wearables in 2018, which is a significant jump from 33.1 million the company recorded in 2017. Xiaomi shows a year over year growth of nearly 45%, Huawei, on the other hand, posted an incredible 147% jump – from 4.6 million wearables shipped in 2017 to 11.3 million in 2018, managing to edge out Samsung from the fourth position.
In total, OEMs collectively shipped 37 million more wearables in 2018 than they did in 2017.
In the final quarter of 2018, Apple shipped 16.2 million devices, 10.4 million of which were Apple Watches, leaving the rest to be AirPods or Beats headphones.
Xiaomi has managed to retain its second place. Huawei’s huge improvement could be attributed to its new product line-up including the Watch GT and FreeBuds 2 Pro, and the fact that the company bundled its wearables with its smartphones including its sub-brand.
Samsung also posted a 105% shipment in Q4 of 2018 that figure translates to a jump from 2 million shipped wearables in Q4 of 2017 to 4 million in Q4 of 2018.
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