We’ve been saying for months that we won’t judge the Apple Watch a success or failure until we see hard numbers from a company like IDC. Now, the market intelligence company says Apple shipped 3.4 million units in 2Q15 — the first quarter of its availability — compared to Fitbit’s 4.4 million. The wearables industry as a whole shipped 18.1 million units, up 223 percent from the year before.
IDC noted that two out of every three of what it called “smart wearables” — those that can run third-party apps — was an Apple Watch last quarter. (The remainder, presumably, were Android Wear devices, which are the only other ones that fit the description of a “smart wearable.”) Fitbit, which runs only its own software, falls into IDC’s “basic wearables” category, which the company expects will lose market share in the next few years.
(We can argue IDC’s segmentation, by the way. Some wearables — we’re thinking high-end trackers like the Garmin and Polar make — are anything but “basic,” even though they run only proprietary software.)
In third place was Xiaomi, which IDC said sold 3.1 million units last quarter, followed by Garmin’s 700,000 and Samsung’s 600,000. “Other” sold 5.7 million. Of the brands that were selling product last year (Fitbit, Garmin, and Samsung), only Samsung lost market share, dropping from 14.3 percent share to 3.3 percent share. In hard numbers, Samsung’s smartwatch sales dropped from 800,000 in the year previous quarter.
Huawei and Jawbone with the Number 6 and 7 vendors, close behind Samsung, IDC said.
Speculation after the Watch’s splashy launch had put 2Q15 at about 2.2 million units. Stock analysts had projected 2015 sales at about 22 million. Our own estimate is 12.4 million units. Right now, our estimate is looking low and analysts’ look high but much closer.