Federica Laricchia
Research expert covering the global consumer technology industry
Get in touch with us nowSmartwatches abd earwear drive the wearable market
Businesses, military forces, and medical professionals have been using wearable technology for decades. Still, the private consumer market has only recently started to feature items such as smart glasses, smartwatches, hearables, fitness and health trackers, smart jewelry, and smart clothing. The most successful wearable devices on the market right now are smartwatches and health and fitness trackers, with the relative newcomer hearables taking over as the most dominant category. In fact, over 340 million earwear units were forecast to be shipped in 2023, while the number of smartwatch unit shipments is expected to reach just under 160 million in the same year.Apple Watch and AirPods are most popular among consumers
The leading wearables vendors are Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, and Samsung, with Apple holding the largest share of the market. Apple’s strong position in the wearables market has mainly been established by the Apple watch, creating dominance in the overall wearables industry. Indeed, Apple's wearable device shipments amounted to about 146 million units in 2022. With a strong presence in the health and fitness wearables market, Fitbit had been a leader in the wearable industry until 2017. From this point, it began to be overtaken, first by Apple, then by the Chinese company Xiaomi, whose Mi Band fitness tracker has achieved great success.
