Apple's shipments of wearables continued to grow year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021, but the company lost overall market share to smaller rivals, according to newly-published IDC data.
Companies shipped a total of 104.6 million units in the first quarter of this year, marking a 34.4 percent increase from the 77.8 million units shipped at the same time last year. This is also the first time that first-quarter shipments have topped 100 million units worldwide.
While market leaders like Apple and Samsung maintained their lead during the quarter, most of the growth came from smaller companies like BoAt.
Apple started 2021 the same way it ended 2020: as the clear leader in the worldwide wearables market. Appetite for its smartwatches remained strong with the less expensive SE and Series 3 gaining further traction in the market while its earwear – inclusive of AirPods and Beats – showed sequential declines after reaching record levels in 4Q20.
Although Apple sold five million more wearables in the first quarter of 2021 and stayed the market leader, it lost 3.5 percent overall market share to competitors, most of which were much smaller.
IDC wearables data includes both smartwatches, such as the Apple Watch, and earwear, such as AirPods. Apple does not provide specific breakdowns of the number of Apple Watch and AirPods models shipped, so IDC's data is based on estimates.
During an earnings call earlier this, Apple said that wearables set a new revenue record in the first fiscal quarter of 2021. Apple's wearables business is now the size of a Fortune 120 company.
I wouldn’t call the rest competitors, any more than I consider a fire tablet an iPad competitor. Apple probably faces more ”competition” from older generations of their products than anywhere else in the market.
In the end, there is no smartwatch market, only an apple watch market.
Apple Watch: poor battery life. Now I'm wearing a sport band which only needs to be charged twice a month
I went the other way - wore a fitness band for a couple couple years, then switched to an Apple Watch.
For me, it turned out the notifications were a bigger deal than counting steps... plus the fitness bands I'd used (from Garmin and from Fitbit) didn't seem to last for more than a year. My first Apple Watch was still going strong after three years - I bought a new one, and my brother is happily using my old one.
The Watch's workout tracking is pretty poor, and really not much better than what my iPhone can do.
That's utter crap. The workout tracking is quite impressive under all circumstances, especially for a multi-purpose item. Show me your BPM's with your iPhone while running...
Apple never cared about market share. They care about profits and they continue to make more money off their products than any other company on the planet.
Two things I really wanted to buy from Apple but didn't: Apple Watch: poor battery life. Now I'm wearing a sport band which only needs to be charged twice a month Homepod: poor connectivity.
There are 2 full size homepods and 2 homepod minis in my house they all function without any issues and charging the watch once a day isn’t a big deal. Most people don’t even wear regular watch 24/7 so placing it on the charger everyone it’s not being worn isn’t a problem. When you consider the functionality of the Apple Watch vs the devices that have more battery life is almost incomparable
Somewhere out there - at a coffee shop, there is someone on a phone call with their iPhone, wearing AirPods, and a Apple Watch, drawing on their iPad with an Apple Pencil, checking email on their Macbook, which fits in a bag or backpack that contains an AirTag. Oh wait that’s me.
Thursday January 28, 2021 3:11 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple has taken the spot in the global smartphone market thanks to record iPhone shipments, while Samsung and Huawei have lost significant ground, according to the latest market research firm data.
Canalys research found that Apple shipped more iPhones than ever in the fourth quarter of 2020, at 81.8 million units. Samsung meanwhile took second place shipping 62 million units – a 12%...
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Apple saw its iPhone shipments in Gulf countries increase by 55% compared to the quarter prior, thanks to the launch of the 5G enabled iPhone 12 and last year's iPhone 11 lineup, according to market research by IDC.
In total, the region saw smartphone shipments grow by 2.3% in the last quarter of the year compared to Q3, to a total of 2.26 million units....
The Mac experienced momentous growth in the first quarter of this year, with shipments growing by 111.5% compared to the same time period last year, according to market data from IDC.
The data shows that the whole PC industry grew year-over-year, despite the global health crisis and component shortages. In Q1 of the year, Apple shipped roughly 6.7 million Macs, representing 8% of the whole...
Apple Watch users with an irregular heartbeat are not visiting doctors more often, but they are more likely to be treated with a heart procedure, a study has found (via The Verge).
The study examined 125 people with atrial fibrillation and a heart-monitoring wearable, such as the Apple Watch, who visited the University of Utah Health during a 90-day period, and compared them to a group of...
Wednesday January 27, 2021 2:26 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple's Wearables, Home, and Accessories category, previously known as the "Other" category, brought in record revenue in the first fiscal quarter of 2021 (fourth calendar quarter), hitting $13 billion, up from $10 billion in the year-ago quarter. The 30 percent growth the category saw during the quarter was driven by demand for the Apple Watch, HomePod mini, and all of the AirPods models,...
Mass production will begin on the third-generation AirPods in the third quarter of 2021, according to an investors note from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that was seen by MacRumors. If mass production is not set to begin until the third quarter of 2021, it would mean that the AirPods 3 wouldn't ship until later in the year. Kuo previously said back in November that the AirPods 3 would launch in the ...
Apple may add health tracking features to AirPods in an effort to combat rival wireless earbuds from companies like Samsung, according to reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
In a recent note to investors, seen by MacRumors, Kuo explained that Apple's sales of AirPods are expected to decline substantially this year, which will likely prompt the company to explore adding new, innovative features to ...
Apple continued to have a dominant hold on the wearables market in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to new shipment estimates shared today by IDC. Apple shipped 55.6 million wearable devices during the quarter for 36.2 percent market share.
That's the same market share Apple held in the fourth quarter of 2019, but overall device shipments were up from 43.7 million in Q4 2019. Apple's...
Tuesday March 30, 2021 11:58 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple shipped an estimated 108.9 million "smart personal audio" devices, which includes the AirPods and Beats headphones in 2020, according to new data shared today by Canalys.
That's up close to 30 percent from the 84 million device shipments in 2019, with Apple holding 25.2 percent market share. Apple dominated the competition, with Samsung, the next closest audio device manufacturer,...
Thursday February 25, 2021 5:02 am PST by Tim Hardwick
According to research firm IDC (via GizChina), Apple dominated the smartphone market in Japan over the fourth quarter of 2020, with the iPhone brand accounting for over half of all phone sales in the country.
As per the report, the mobile market reached 11.432 million shipments in Q4 2020, and 52.6% of all smartphone sales in Japan were iPhones, substantially contributing to a 10.6%...
Top Rated Comments
In the end, there is no smartwatch market, only an apple watch market.
For me, it turned out the notifications were a bigger deal than counting steps... plus the fitness bands I'd used (from Garmin and from Fitbit) didn't seem to last for more than a year. My first Apple Watch was still going strong after three years - I bought a new one, and my brother is happily using my old one.