Wearables market rose 7.7 percent to 37.9 million units in Q4 and grew 10.3 percent to 115.4 million units in 2017, said IDC.

The 10.3 percent growth in 2017 is a steep decline from 27.3 percent growth in 2016, said Ramon T. Llamas, research director for IDC’s Wearables team. The main reason for the dip in growth is due to the exit of numerous vendors, who relied on older models, from the global wearables market.

Apple is leading the wearable market after spending several quarters close behind Fitbit or Xiaomi. Apple is catching the market with many users of basic wearables moving on to smartwatches and cellular connectivity. Apple shipped 8 million units to emerge as the leader of the wearables market for the year.
Fitbit transformed its distribution, conducted promotion of Ionic smartwatch and continued application development for its Fitbit OS platform. Fitbit took steps to enhance its reach in healthcare, including partnerships with Dexcom and United Healthcare.

Xiaomi posted a slight decrease in shipments, again relying on its aging MiBand 2 to account for the majority of its volume. Xiaomi’s focus still remains within its home region of China with less than 15 percent of its volumes heading elsewhere.

Garmin posted a slight increase from a year ago. Like Fitbit, Garmin relies on fitness tracker product line and its vivo-branded products helped push its basic wearables selection back above the one million units mark.

Huawei wrist bands have achieved popularity in China and helped the company become the number two wearables maker within the country.