IDC has released its report on China’s wearable market for Q1 2020. According to it, Huawei led the market just like it did in smartphones. Apple and Garmin were the only non-Chinese companies performing well in the region. As a whole, the market shipped 17.62 million units, which translates to 11.3% YoY decline.
According to the report, the shipments of basic wearables that don’t have support for third-party apps (eg. fitness trackers) decreased by 5.5% YoY with 14.86 million units. On the other hand, the proper smartwatches (including adult and kids) also witnessed a whopping decline of 33.3% with only 2.76 million units.
The decrease in shipments is due to the COVID-19 pandemic but it also helped in the increased shipments of wireless earphones (26.5% YoY) and adult smartwatches (8.4%) as people are working as well as attending schools/colleges from their homes.
As per IDC, by the end of 2020, the overall wearable market of China will grow by 17.4% while wireless earphones and adult smartwatches will grow by 47.7% and 37.6% respectively.
China’s Top 5 Wearable Brands in Q1 2020
- Huawei
- Xiaomi
- Apple
- LifeSense
- BBK Electronics
Huawei led the overall Chinese wearable market in Q1 2020 with shipments of 4.282 million units, which accounted for 24.3% market share. The company grew 18.8% YoY as its shipments and market share were 3.605 million and 18.1% at the same time last year (Q1 2019).
Xiaomi came a close second with 23.5% market share based on 4.144 million units of shipments. But it witnessed a decline of 0.6%. In the previous year, it led the market with 4.177 million units and 21.0% market share.
At the third position, Apple shipped 2.848 million units covering 16.2% of the market. The US tech giant grew 15.2% YoY from 12.4% market share and 2.473 million units.
The fourth position was occupied by LifeSense with 4.5% market share shipping 785K units. It was the only brand to show a huge increase in its market share by 72.9% YoY. For comparison, in Q1 2019, it only shipped 458K units and grabbed a mere 2.3% market share.
Lastly, the fifth place was held by BBK Electronics, which is known for its Okii XTC smartwatches for kids. It shipped 765K units down from 1.448 million units last year. It only accounted for 4.3% market share compared to last year’s 7.3%. In other words, it was the worst-performing of all the top brands with 47.1% YoY decline.
China’s Top 5 Adult Smartwatch Brands in Q1 2020
As adult smartwatch performed well in Q1 2020 in China, IDC also released a separate top 5 chart for it. Here’s a table to understand it better.
Brands |
Q1 2020 Shipments |
Q1 2020 Market Share |
Q1 2019 Shipments |
Q1 2019 Market Share |
Increase/Decline YoY |
|
Huawei |
1.045 million | 47.8% | 493K | 24.5% | 111.9% |
|
Apple |
319K | 14.6% | 285K | 14.1% | 11.9% |
| Xiaomi | 128K | 5.9% | 44K | 2.2% |
189.5% |
| Jiaming (Garmin) | 110K | 5.0% | 131K | 6.5% |
-16.1% |
| Huami | 98K | 4.5% | 345K | 17.1% |
-71.6% |
From the table, we can clearly see that Xiaomi and Huawei were the most successful brands in Q1 2020 with an increase of 189.5% and 111.9% YoY respectively. However, Huami’s market share plunged by 71.6% YoY making it the worst-performing top brands in the same period.
Non-Chinese brands like Apple and Garmin’s Jiaming made it to the top list but only the former showed an increase of 11.9% YoY, whereas the latter declined by 16.1% YoY.
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(Source)
