New data from Strategy Analyst, a leading market research firm, shows that Apple has dethroned yet another competitor. This time, it has beaten Fitbit to take the crown as the world’s largest seller of wearable tech.
The report claimed —
“Fitbit has lost its wearables leadership to Apple, due to slowing demand for its fitness bands and a late entry to the emerging smartwatch market.”
Here are the numbers to validate this claim.
In this year’s first quarter (Q1 – Jan, Feb, Mar of 2017), Apple sold 3.5 million Apple Watch units. When compared to the same quarter from last year, Apple’s growth has been amazing. Last year in Q1, Apple sold just 2.2 million units, thus making this year’s figures a massive 59% increase year-over-year.
In comparison, Fitbit’s figures have gone down.
From 4.5 million in Q1 last year, Fitbit’s numbers fell to only 2.9 million in 2017’s Q1. In the process, they have lost a lot of market share. From controlling nearly a quarter of the market, Fitbit now has just a little more than an eighth of the market.
While Apple certainly has done a great job with the Apple Watch, this is a battle lost by Fitbit as much as won by Apple. The report goes on point out —
“Fitbit’s shipments, revenue, pricing and profit are all shrinking at the moment and the company has a major fight on its hands to recover this year.”
Xiaomi is the red-herring.
In all this, the surprise was delivered by Xiaomi. In terms of total number of units sold, it’s just behind Apple with 3.4 million units for the first quarter this year.
However, that’s not something to celebrate. because even their numbers are down. Although only slight, a decline from 3.8 million to 3.4 million is still a decline. A more worrying feature for Xiaomi, just like for Fitbit is the bigger decline in the market share.
Of course, these numbers are not yet verified by Apple. CultOfMac reports —
“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 and when Apple does choose to reveal the figures, though, we are sure it might not be off by much!
