Apple shipped two-thirds of all smart watches in 2015
Apple dominated the smart watch market in 2015, accounting for over 12 million units and two-thirds of all shipments according to Canalys estimates. Samsung returned to second place in Q4, as the improved design of the Gear S2 saw a much better consumer reception than previous wearable efforts by the company. Pebble came third and Huawei came fourth, establishing itself as the leading Android Wear vendor. Basic bands exceeded 37 million shipments for the year. Fitbit set a quarterly shipments record as it comfortably led the category. Xiaomi held second place, shipping 12 million Mi Bands during 2015.
“Cashing in on holiday sales, Apple managed to rack up over five million shipments in the fourth quarter,” according to Analyst Jason Low. Strong holiday shipments for Fitbit, Apple and Garmin drove growth of over 60% sequentially for all wearable bands. Across the entire wearable bands segment, Fitbit led all vendors in Q4, followed by Apple and Xiaomi. “Software increasingly belongs on the wrist, and this is the direction the market is going,” said Analyst Daniel Matte. “As the next step along this path, the Fitbit Blaze is the right product for the company to develop. It is competitively priced and is still being squarely focused on fitness.”
Wearable band shipment data is taken from Canalys’ Wearable Technology Analysis service, which provides quarterly market tracking, including country-level estimates. Canalys defines basic wearable bands as devices serving a specific set of purposes that act as accessories to smart devices, are designed to be worn on the body and not carried and cannot run third party computing applications. Smart watches are multi-purpose devices that serve as accessories to smart devices, are designed to be worn on the body and not carried, run an operating system and are capable of running third party computing applications. Bands are wearables designed to be wrapped around the body, including watches, and do not include activity trackers in the form of clips.
