Apple Watch still best-selling smartwatch… by far

The Apple Watch is still, by far, the best-selling smartwatch on the market, according to data published by IDC on Monday.

IDC’s report suggests that the Apple Watch has a 46-percent share of the smartwatch market with 1.5 million units sold during the first quarter of this year. That’s a compelling stat not only because it’s more than double the 700,000 smartwatch shipments IDC estimates Samsung sold, but because Apple doesn’t typically break down that figure in its earnings report.

IDC said Samsung has a 20.9 percent market share followed by Motorola with 10.9 percent, Huawei at 4.7 percent and Garmin with a 3 percent share.

There’s a different picture in the entire wearable market as a whole, however, where Fitbithas the lion’s market share (24.5 percent) followed by Xiaomi (19 percent), Apple (7.5 percent), Garmin (4.6 percent) and Samsung (3.6 percent).

IDC says that’s an important distinction, too — smartwatches and “wearables” in general are very different products. “It’s shortsighted to think that basic wearables and smart watches are in competition with each other,” IDC’s Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC’s Mobile Device Tracker, said. “Right now, we see both as essential to expand the overall market. The unique feature sets combined with substantial differences in price and performance sets each category apart, and leaves plenty of room for both to grow over the next few years.”

That’s why, despite Apple’s seeming early success in the smartwatch market, Samsung and other firms that also create wearables don’t necessarily need to worry about every movement Apple makes with its smartwatch portfolio. And it’s also why we see those firms continue to release new, extremely simple, fitness trackers.

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