Apple has overtaken Fitbit to be crowned largest wearables vendor in the world, according to Strategy Analytics.
The market research firm claims that Apple sold around 3.5 million Apple Watches in the first three months of calendar 2017. That’s an increase of a massive 59 percent from the 2.2 million units Apple sold during the first quarter 2016. It means the company currently holds 16 percent of the worldwide market share.
By comparison, Fitbit suffered a decline, with only 2.9 million units selling in Q1 2017. That’s down for the 4.5 million units it sold in the first three months of 2016. In other words, Apple Watch is big — but not as big as Fitbit was this time last year.
Also of note on the list is Xiaomi, which shipped an impressive 3.4 million wearables to capture 15 percent market share worldwide thanks to its Mi Band.
Photo: Strategy Analytics
Apple still hasn’t shared any exact sales figures for its Apple Watch, although it’s consistently claimed that sales are strong — and has never used the “hobby” label that it has in the past applied to other non-Mac, non-iOS businesses.
As part of Apple’s recent quarterly earnings figures, Tim Cook claimed that Apple Watch sales have nearly doubled year-over-year. In fact, Apple’s wearables business is now “the size of a Fortune 500 company” all by itself, Cook said during the earnings call. Alongside other Apple wearables like AirPods, the Apple Watch bagged the company more than $5 billion in the last 12 months.
Source: Strategy Analytics
