IDC: Wearables grew 17.9% in Q1 2017; Fitbit shipped 3M units as its marketshare fell to 12.3%, behind Xiaomi and Apple, which both shipped ~3.6M units
It has finally happened: Fitbit has shed enough market share to lose its first place spot in wearables.
Context & Ripple Effects
Fitbit has held the wearables crown since the category took off — IDC had it shipping 4.4M units to Apple Watch's 3.6M as recently as mid-2015, and it beat Apple again in IDC's Q3 2015 tally. The Q1 2017 crossover ends that run: Fitbit's 3M shipments and 12.3% share put it behind both Xiaomi and Apple at roughly 3.6M units each.
Strategy Analytics' contemporaneous count tells the same story within a rounding error — Apple at 3.5M watches, Xiaomi at 3.4M, Fitbit at 2.9-3M — so this is not one firm's methodology. The lead change is durable, not a blip: Canalys has Apple on top again in Q3 2017 with 23% share, and IDC's Q1 2018 ranking keeps Apple first, Xiaomi second, Fitbit third.
First-order effects
- Fitbit is now the number-three wearable vendor behind Xiaomi and Apple, with its share down to 12.3% even as the total market grew 17.9% — it is losing ground in an expanding market, which points at product mix rather than demand.
Second-order effects
- Xiaomi's rise on cheap bands while Apple pulls away on premium watches squeezes Fitbit from both ends of the price spectrum, pressuring the mid-market tracker position it built its business on.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, single-category tracker vendors get absorbed into larger platforms — consistent with Fitbit's later path into Google's orbit via required Google accounts and a planned rebrand toward Google Health services.
The trend: Wearables are consolidating around platform owners — Apple at the high end, Xiaomi at the low end — while standalone fitness-tracker specialists like Fitbit cede share quarter after quarter.