Huawei's 44% growth pushes it past Apple in wearables market share

In a nutshell: The wrist-worn wearables market, which includes fitness bands and smartwatches, grew 3 percent YoY in Q3 2024, with total global shipments reaching 52.9 million units. Apple, however, lost its pole position to Chinese tech major Huawei, largely due to a massive spike in wearables shipments in China.

While the third quarter offered good news for wearables manufacturers, it still couldn't make up for the sluggishness in the market during the first half of the year. According to the latest data from IDC, shipments of wrist-worn devices fell to 139 million units worldwide in the first nine months of this year, a drop of about 1 percent from last year's 140.5 million.

Long-time market leader Apple has had a relatively poor time in 2024, shipping only 22.5 million Apple Watches, compared to the 25.8 million units it shipped during the same period last year.

The 12.8 percent fall in shipments resulted in the company's market share dropping from 18.4 percent to 16.2 percent, allowing second-placed Huawei to topple it as the world's leading wearables maker.

Despite the lower volumes, the Apple Watch remains the best-selling smartwatch in the world. The company launched its Apple Watch Series 10 and the Watch Ultra 2 earlier this year, and by all accounts, they have been well-received by consumers worldwide.

Huawei shipped 23.6 million wrist-worn wearables during the first three quarters of 2024, a 44.3 percent jump from the 16.3 million units shipped during the same period last year. The company's latest wrist-worn wearables include the GT5 and GT5 Pro smartwatches, as well as the Watch D2 blood pressure monitor.

Along with Apple and Huawei, the other vendors in the top five list are Xiaomi, Samsung, and BBK, which is the parent company of OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, and iQOO. While Xiaomi was the third-biggest wearables vendor during Q3 with shipments of 20.5 million units, Samsung and BBK managed to move 11.5 million and 7.8 million devices, respectively, during the same period.

Samsung's 7th-generation Galaxy Watch models shipped in the third quarter along with the all-new Galaxy Watch Ultra. The company also recently released the Watch FE model that reportedly helped increase its shipments in Q3. The Galaxy Fit 3 fitness band, which launched earlier this year, also helped Samsung improve its market share.