Smartphone and tablet sales in the first quarter this year took a massive hit due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Not only has the situation forced manufacturers to scale down production and delay product launches, but the financial uncertainty of it all has also led to potential buyers deferring purchases. However, that doesn't seem to be the case for the wearables market. According to the IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker report, Xiaomi, Apple, Samsung, and Huawei saw significant growth in the wearables segment in Q1 2020.

IDC Wearables Q1 2020 Xiaomi Huawei Samsung Apple

As per Business Wire, global shipments of wearable devices grew 29.7% YoY during Q1 2020, with total device volume reaching 72.6 million units. However, the growth was disproportionately spread across different categories in the wearables segment, with fitness bands and wireless earphones surpassing sales of smartwatches. The fitness band category saw a 16.2% growth in the first quarter, thanks to new product launches like the Fitbit Charge 4 and aggressive pricing from Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi and Huawei. The wireless earbuds category, on the other hand, grew an impressive 68.3% and accounted for 54.9% of the total market share.

IDC Wearables Q1 2020 Xiaomi Apple Samsung Huawei

As far as individual brands are concerned, Apple maintained its top spot in the wearable segment with a 23.9% market share and 21.2 million units shipped in Q1 2020. Xiaomi took the second spot with 7.3 million fitness bands and smartwatches shipped in the quarter. Samsung ranked third with its wearables business accounting for 74% of its total shipments during the quarter, up from 58.9% at the same time last year. Its Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Buds+ were well received and the company managed to ship over 4 million units of the two models. Huawei and its sub-brand Honor took the fourth spot, with 8.1 million units shipped in the time period. The decline in smartwatch sales was directly attributed to the fact that these watches share some components with smartphones which were in short supply during the period.


Source: Business Wire