Basic Tracker Sales Decline for First Time in Q2 as Smartwatch Shipments Surge on Features: IDC
More sophisticated features drove the wearables market in Q2 as worldwide shipments jumped 10.3 percent vs. the year-ago quarter, said an IDC report. The quarter marked a turning point as sales of basic models that don’t run third-party apps declined…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
for the first time while smartwatch shipments surged 61 percent, said IDC. What were once niche features -- GPS and health tracking – are now standard in smartwatches, said analyst Jitesh Ubrani, saying GPS, in just a quarter of all wearables a year ago, was a feature in 42 percent of smartwatches in Q2. Algorithms that track workouts and give health insights are equally important to device features, Ubrani said, which could keep Apple and Fitbit atop the U.S. market “as their investments in the tracking and perhaps diagnosing of diseases will be a clear differentiator from low-cost rivals." For Q2, Xiaomi led the global wearables market with 3.5 million shipments, followed by Apple and Fitbit, both with 3.4 million shipments and share of 13 and 12.9 percent. Garmin finished the quarter with 1.4 million shipments for 5.4 percent, followed by Fossil with 1 million shipped and 4 percent share, it said.