American market research firm IDC said in a report on Wednesday that global shipments of wearable devices will reach 213.6 million by 2020.
Some insiders are not optimistic about the current situation of the wearables market. According to an IDC report in May, the global wearable shipments was 19.7 million in Q1 2016, a decrease from the 27.4 million in Q4 2015.
“In fact, electronic devices saw a certain decrease of shipments in the first Quarter is not surprisingly, so does WW wearables market. But things will be better for the wearables market in the second half of 2016,” Jean Xiao, research manager for IDC Beijing told AllChinaTech in an interview.
According to the IDC press release on Wednesday, global shipments of wearable devices will reach 101.9 million, a 29% increase over 2015. Xiao said the reason is both the users and product categories will see an increase.
Smartwatches and wristbands are the main products in the current wearables market. According to IDC, other categories include eyewear, clothing, clip-on devices and hearables.
“The Chinese consumers now prefer products with high performance cost ratio including wristbands and smartwatches for children, while the Western market prefer smart watches and professional fitness tracker,” said Xiao.
“The shipments by Chinese wearable device makers have actually increased in Q1 2016, but that increase was overshadowed by the sharp decrease of Apple’s watches.”
According to the IDC report in May, Apple made 1.5 million shipments in Q1 2016, a 63% decrease from the 4.1 million in Q4 2015. Xiao said that the market share of Chinese players will increase to 38% by the end of 2015 from the 30.1% in 2015, and that their shipments will account for 43.5% of the global market in Q1 2016.
IDC listed the top five wearable makers in shipments made in China in Q1 2016: Xiaomi ranked first with 3.4 million shipments, followed by BBK, Lifesense, Apple and Huawei.
“Chinese wearable makers should keep their own strength in the future. And the technologies used in smart watches will be improved. With varieties of form factor, and mass market expend, we have a good reason to expect growth of the wearables market in the coming years,” said Xiao.
(Top photo from baidu images)
