Wearable band shipments rose 35 percent to 20.5 million units in Q1 2018, driven by demand for health-centric devices, according to a report from Canalys.
The report said smartwatches accounted for 80 percent of wearable band revenue against 74 percent in Q1 2017. Smartwatches accounted for 43 percent in Q1 2018 in terms of shipped units.
Apple emerged as the top vendor, shipping 3.8 million Apple Watches.
Xiaomi, whose Mi Bands account for more than 90 percent of its shipments, shipped 3.7 million units for the second position.
Fitbit, Garmin and Huawei, vendors selling a mixed portfolio of fitness wearables, rounded out the top five.
Canalys senior analyst Jason Low said: “Operators welcome the additional revenue from device sales and the added subscription revenue for data on the Apple Watch, and the list of operators that sell the LTE Apple Watch worldwide is increasing each month.”
Apple represents 59 percent of the total cellular-enabled smartwatch market.
Apple ecosystem has a strong LTE watch offering. The lack of a LTE watch offering in the Android ecosystem is glaring.
Garmin is the second largest smartwatch vendor after Apple, with 1 million smartwatches shipped in the last quarter.
Fitbit is betting on its Versa smartwatch. Smartwatches including the Blaze made up 24 percent of Fitbit’s wearable band shipments.
