An International Data Corporation (IDC) report has identified the top shipper of wearables during the quarter.
The IDC has now released its “Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker” report, which identified the number of wearable technology devices that were shipped in Q1 of this year, saying that there were 11.4 million of these gadgets.
This marks a tremendous raise over the wearables from the same quarter last year, which was 3.8 million.
That represents a tremendous growth of 200 percent when it comes to the shipments of wearable technology. Moreover, the report also indicated that this growth in the industry appears to be relatively steady. Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers senior research analyst, Jitesh Ubrani, explained that “As with any young market, price erosion has been quite drastic. We now see over 40% of the devices priced under $100, and that’s one reason why the top 5 vendors have been able to grow their dominance from two thirds of the market in the first quarter of last year to three quarters this quarter.”
That said, wearable technology’s growth does not appear to be dependent on dropping prices.
The entrance of Apple with its Watch that is priced at a higher level has shown that there is some consumer interest in paying more in order to receive a product from a premium brand or one that is currently in the spotlight. What will be interesting is whether or not that consumer interest actually continues or if this represents a novelty that will wear off after a period of time.
The IDC report also pointed out that it was Fitbit that took the top spot in terms of its share of the wearable tech market. The data in the report indicated that the company was holding onto a hefty 34.2 percent of the total global wearables market.
During the first quarter of this year, Fitbit, alone, shipped 3.9 million of its devices. In second place was Xiaomi, which shipped a strong but notably lower 2.8 million units. Garmin and Samsung took the third and fourth spots on the list, respectively. The fifth place was grabbed onto by Jawbone.
