According to the market research firm Canalys, Apple is now leading the wearable market with its Apple Watch in the third quarter of 2017 with 3.9 million shipments, surpassing Xiaomi which previously held the top spot for a brief period of time.
It seems the new LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 has received a decent response from consumers, however, due to supply constraints, it didn't reach its full potential. Canalys estimates that Apple Watch Series 3 LTE shipments amounted to 800,000 units.
Also, the company had to face a setback in China after the regulatory authorities suspended Apple Watch Series 3's cellular connectivity due to security concerns as it is unable to track and confirm the user's identity due to the eSIM.
Canalys Analyst Jason Low said,
“Strong demand for the LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 has dispelled service providers’ doubts about the cellular smartwatch not appealing to customers. In China, customers with high expectations are being driven away by the service disruption fiasco in the country. Besides bringing in more stock, operators should work on improving their remote service provisioning systems to cater for the expected higher demand in Q4.”
Apple's market share is currently residing at 23 percent followed by Xiaomi and Fitbit with 21 and 20 percent respectively. Xiaomi shipped 3.6 million wearable devices in the third quarter followed by Fitbit with 3.5 million shipments. However, despite the increase in the shipments for the companies, the overall wearable market fell by 2 percent to 17.3 million units.
As per Canalys, wearable manufacturers are hoping for a stronger fourth quarter as smartwatches are becoming better in terms of designs and features. Also, the holiday season is just around the corner, and if the companies, especially Apple, can keep up with the demand, they may end up with strong sales.
Source: Canalys
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