Shipments of “hearables” soared over 250% last year

Xiaomi’s low-priced Mi Bands, which offer plenty of functionality for a low price, helped the company finish in second place during the quarter with shipments of 12.8 million units. That was a 71.1% increase on an annual basis and it gave the manufacturer 10.8% of the wearables market. That was actually a smaller share than the 11.5% it held during the same period in 2018. That means that its fourth-quarter growth fell short of the growth scored by the overall wearable market.

Led by its Galaxy Active and Active 2 smartwatches, Samsung delivered 10.5 million wearable units in Q4, a strong 127.6% gain year-over-year. The company now owns 8.8% of the global market. Huawei was next (although IDC says it tied Samsung for third because the difference in share between the two companies was 1% or less) having shipped 9.3 million wearables globally during the three months. That was a gain of 63.4% from 2018’s fourth quarter thanks to the Huawei GT smartwatch and some new hearable devices. The company owned 7.8% of the market during the quarter.

Apple shipped a leading total of 106.5 million wearable units in 2019 for a 121.7% increase from 2018; the company owned 31.7% of the market last year. Xiaomi was second for the year having shipped 421.7 million wearables for a 12.4% slice of the wearable pie. Samsung shipped 30.9 million wearable units last year, good enough for a 9.2% market share. Huawei and Fitbit finished 2019 with market shares of 8.3% and 4.7% respectively.

For all of 2019, 336.5 million wearable units were shipped globally compared to the 178 units delivered in 2018. That works out to an annual increase of 89%. Earwear/Hearables was the biggest category accounting for 170.5 million units, good enough for 50.7% of the overall market. That worked out to a 250.5% hike over 2018’s shipments. Smartwatches were second with 92.4 million units delivered last year. That made up 27.5% of the market, a steep decline from 2018’s 42.3%.