A watershed moment within the global wearables space, HUAWEI for Q1 2025 became the primary vendor. According to IDC, the tech titan seconded only to its local competitor, Xiaomi, before being forced to rank after a couple of international giants, namely Apple and Samsung.
During the first quarter of the year, HUAWEI shipped around 10 million smartwatches and fitness trackers, a marvelous performance that would have taken it to the top position in the world. The note-worthy devices from this success were the WATCH GT 5, Fit 3, and WATCH ULTIMATE models. Compared to the same time last year, HUAWEI sales jumped by over 3 million units, pushing its world market share from 17% to an impressive 21.9%.
Xiaomi came in second after HUAWEI, making it to the global second position, with the shipment of 8.7 million units claiming 19% market share, year-on-year increase of 42.6%.
Apple came in third, with 7 million shipments accounting for 15.5% market share. This is somewhat respectable growth, at 37.2%. Still, Apple seems to be facing some headwinds, with China proving most challenging.
In fourth place came Samsung, with 3.4 million units shipped for a 7.5% market share. Garmin rounds off the top five, shipping 2.1 million wearable devices for a market share of 4.7%. Both Samsung and Garmin have retained their ranks but did not flaunt the magnificent growth of the leaders.
The entire wearable market, in general, grew fairly well during the first quarter of 2025. It recorded a 10.5% growth, with 45.57 million gadgets shipped. A chunk of the market, 17.62 million units, belongs to China, which itself grew at an impressive 37.6%.
