The market for the smartwatch and other wearables continues to grow strongly, with Apple as the absolute market leader thanks to the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Apple is the wearables market leader of the moment
Although Apple itself never says how much Apple Watches and AirPods the company has exactly sold, we get thanks to market researchers like International Data Corporation. From a new report, the number of wearables that went over the counter has increased by 31 percent in the last quarter of 2018.
In total, 172.2 million wearables market were shipped worldwide last year. This includes smartwatches, fitness bracelets and headphones with a digital assistant in it.
What is particularly striking is the position of Apple, which thanks to the Apple Watch and AirPods are leading with 46.2 million sold wearables last year. Number two, Xiaomi, sold 23.3 million. Huawei now stands at 11.3 million, but with 248.5% it has experienced the strongest growth in the past twelve months.
While the wearable market is still growing, for the time being, the opposite is true for smartphones. Last year it turned out that we are over the peak in terms of smartphone sales. The market researchers predict that this trend will only continue in the coming years. People do longer with their smartphone and the market will not really revive until 5G is the norm and has also been rolled out worldwide.
How Apple addresses the stagnating smartphone sales
Apple also suffers from this stagnating smartphone market and tries to solve this in several ways. This is partly due to the sale of the Apple Watch and AirPods, but mainly by the company’s services. For example, Apple would reveal its own news service and Netflix competitor this month, so that a constant stream of revenue is generated with subscription costs.