The wearables market grew 16.9 percent year-on-year in the last three months of the year, reaching a quarterly record of 33.9 million thanks to the effects of the holiday season and improved device features, according to the latest study from IDC. Total wearables shipments for 2016 grew 25 percent to 102.4 million devices as new vendors entered the market and previous champions refreshed their product lineups. IDC added that the growing momentum is due to the evolution of wearables from single-purpose footstep trackers into multi-purpose wearable devices fusing together multiple health and fitness capabilities and smartphone notifications.
In terms of vendors, Fitbit maintained its dominance, with 6.5 million quarterly sales and 19.2 percent of the market, albeit down from 29.0 percent in Q4 2015. Xiaomi's shipments soared by 96.2 percent year on year to 5.2 million from 2.6 million, with Apple’s sales rising 13.0 percent year on year to 4.6 million thanks to the lower entry price point of the Watch Series 1 and Series 2 and the inclusion of GPS on the Series 2. Garmin dipped to 2.1 million from 2.2 million in Q4 2015 although it did manage to significantly raise its average selling price to USD 258 in the fourth quarter from under USD 200 last year. Samsung, in fifth place, increased shipments to 1.9 million from 1.4 million thanks in part to the launch of two new models (Gear S3 Classic and Frontier).
Beyond the top five vendors are new entrants, including fashion icons like Fossil and emerging companies like BBK and Li-Ning, that are tapping into niche segments of the wearables market, said IDC.
