Apple continues to dominate the wearables market, says a new report, despite a steep drop in shipments for both Apple Watch and AirPods.

There was movement lower down the charts, with Huawei taking third place from Samsung during the first quarter of the year …

Wearables market growing, but increasingly price-sensitive

Market intelligence company IDC presented its latest estimates of wearable shipments, reporting that the global wearables market continues to grow, but there’s a growing trend of people opting for cheaper devices.

The wearables market began 2024 with a growth spurt as global shipments of wearable devices grew 8.8% year over year in the first quarter (1Q24) to 113.1 million units, according to new data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker.

Despite the shipment growth, average selling prices (ASPs) declined for the fifth quarter in a row, dropping 11% in 1Q24 as emerging markets gained traction and as the economy put downward pressure on consumer spending.

The company said that the lack of any significant tech innovation in the market meant that tier-two companies were now gaining share at the expense of the market leader.

Apple sees steep falls, but remains unchallenged

The bad news for Apple was that both Apple Watch and AirPods shipments declined significantly, but it still remains unchallenged as the market leader.

Apple maintained the top position although it was held back by poor macroeconomic conditions, a temporary ban on certain watch models, and the lack of newer AirPods. Overall, Apple Watch shipments declined 19.1% year over year while hearables including AirPods and Beats declined 18.8% during the quarter.

Apple’s share of the market fell from 24.5% in the first quarter of 2023 to 18.2% in the same quarter this year.

However, this still left it comfortably ahead of Xiaomi’s 10.5%, Huawei’s 9.6%, and Samsung’s 9.3%.

Photo by Daniel Korpai on Unsplash