Worldwide shipments of wearable devices grew 1.2% in Q1 2018: IDC

Worldwide shipments of wearable devices grew 1.2 percent during the first quarter of 2018 (1Q18) as shipments reached 25.1 million units, according to a new report by IDC.

The growth was far lower than the 18 percent year-on-year growth one year ago largely due to the 9.2 percent decline in shipments of basic wearables. During the same period, smart wearables by Apple, Fitbit, and numerous fashion brands grew 28.4 percent as consumer preferences continued to shift towards smarter devices," IDC said.

"With the move towards smarter devices, we're also starting to see hints of where the wearables market is headed," said Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers.

Additional sensors, years of underlying data, and improved algorithms are allowing pillars of the industry like Fitbit and Apple to help identify diseases and other health irregularities. Meanwhile, roughly one-third of all wearables included cellular connectivity this quarter, which has allowed new use-cases to emerge.

The research firm pointed out Cupertino- based tech giant Apple Watch shipments grew 13.5 percent over the previous year as the launch of a cellular-connected Watch entered additional markets.

It said Apple's growth has also outpaced the entire market allowing the watchmaker to increase its share from 14.3 percent in 1Q17 to 16.1 percent in 1Q18.

While Xiaomi captured the second position with 14.8 percent share of unit shipments.

However, with the lowest average selling price among the top 5 companies, Xiaomi was only able to capture a paltry 1.8 percent of the dollar value of the market during the quarter.

Wearables maker Fitbit ranked third during this quarter, despite a decline of 28.1 percent and Huawei managed to capture the fourth position during this quarter with 1.3 million shipments and five percent market share, followed by Garmin with 1.3 million shipments and five percent.

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Outside of watches and wristbands, which accounted for 95 percent of the shipments during the quarter, sensor-laden clothing grew 58.6 percent year over year.