Apple grabs top spot in global wearables market: IDC report

The launch of Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular connectivity helped increase Apple’s wearable strength.

Apple announced watchOS 5 with new features and updates at WWDC 2018. (AP)

With four million shipments in the first quarter of 2018, Apple has become the leader in the global wearables market, according to a report by International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker.

Apple Watch shipments grew 13.5% over the previous year as the launch of a cellular-connected Watch entered additional markets even as the wearable device shipments slowed down, the report said on Monday.

The iPhone market's growth has also outpaced the entire wearables market allowing the company to increase its share from 14.3% in the first quarter of 2017 to 16.1% in the first quarter of 2018.

"Worldwide shipments of wearable devices grew 1.2% in the first quarter of 2018 as shipments reached 25.1 million units," IDC said in a statement.

The growth was far lower than the 18% year-on-year (YoY) growth one year ago largely due to the 9.2% decline in shipments of basic wearables. During the same period, smart wearables by Apple, Fitbit and numerous fashion brands grew 28.4% as consumer preferences continued to shift towards smarter devices," according to the statement.

Xiaomi grabbed the second position with 14.8% share of unit shipments.

"However, with the lowest average selling price (ASP) among the top five companies, Xiaomi was only able to capture 1.8% of the dollar value of the market during this quarter," the company added.

Wearables maker Fitbit ranked third during this quarter, despite a decline of 28.1%.

Chinese company Huawei managed to capture the fourth position during this quarter with 1.3 million shipments and 5% market share, followed by Garmin with 1.3 million shipments and 5% market share.