The wearables market tripled between Q3 2014 and Q3 2015, says IDC report

According to a new IDC report, the top five wearables makers shipped 21 million units in Q3 2015.

At face value this appears to be a modest number, but in reality it’s a 197.6 percent increase from the 7.1 million wearables shipped during the same quarter last year.

Fitbit, which has found success with both its Fitbit Surge and Charge HR wearables, shipped twice as many units as it did in Q3 2014 — 4.7 million compared to 2.3 million. That said, the company actually saw its market share decline from 32.8 percent to 22.8 percent. However, this says less about Fitbit’s performance as a company and more about the explosive growth of fitness wearables.

In second place at 18.6 percent share, Apple shipped 3.9 million units of the Apple Watch. The company entered IDC’s charts last quarter with 3.6 million units, and with the holiday season now underway, it’s likely the Apple Watch will reach the 10 million mark before the end of 2015.

Rounding out the top three is Xiaomi. With only 0.4 million units shipped in Q3 2014, the Chinese company saw the greatest growth of any firm on the list. Moreover, in increasing the number of units it shipped to 3.7 million, Xiaomi managed to grow its market share to 17.4 percent.

‘The early stages of the wearables market have led to tight competition among the leading vendors, and Chinese vendors have seized upon market momentum to grab market share,” said the IDC’s Ramon Llamas said in a statement issued to MobileSyrup. “China has quickly emerged as the fastest-growing wearables market, attracting companies eager to compete on price and feature sets.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this report is the one company missing from the top five. With just 100,000 fewer units shipped than BBK, smartphone giant Samsung barely missed making IDC’s list.

[source]IDC[/source][via]VentureBeat[/via]