Apple Loses Leadership Position In Wearable Band Market To This Chinese Company

The competitive dynamics in the global wearable band market has changed in the second quarter, according to a new report from Canalys.

Apple Toppled: China's Xiaomi Corp (OTC: XIACF) overtook Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) to become the top wearable band vendor in the second quarter, thanks to the launch of the Mi Smart Band 6, Canalys said.

The company shipped 8 million bands in the second quarter, up 2.6% year-over-year. This gave the company 19.6% of the market.

The strong performance comes despite India, one of Xiaomi's strongest markets, was not on the initial global launch list.

"Xiaomi made a wise move to hasten the release of the Mi Band 6, which is a more compelling device than its predecessor," said Canalys analyst Cynthia Chen.

In comparison, Apple shipped 7.9 million wearable bands and took 19.3% of the overall market.

Huawei and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL)-owned Fitbit took the third and fourth position, respectively, with 7.3% and 6.1% market share.

Global wearable band shipments rose 5.6% year-over-year to 40.9 million units, the report said.

A Canalys report released in mid-July showed Xiaomi overtook Apple in smartphone shipments in the quarter to take the second spot.

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Apple Maintains Sizeable Lead In Wristwatch Market: Apple continued to lead the global wristwatch market, with a commanding 31.1% market share in the second quarter, Canalys said.

Apple shipped 7.9 million wristwatches, the report added.

Huawei was a distant second with a 9% market share and Garmin followed with a 7.6% share.

Recent vendor movements included Samsung joining forces with Google to develop Wear OS 3 and the launch of Samsung's Galaxy Watch4 series with new biosensors and a 5nm chipset. Among the other challengers are Oppo and Huami (Zepp), which are developing in-house components and solutions for their watches, Canalys said.

At last check Tuesday afternoon, Apple shares were up 1.255% at $156.69.

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Photo: Courtesy of Apple