IDC: Apple has gained market share in wearables, but lags behind its competitors in the second quarter
Shop E Store IDC reports on global “wrist decoration” devices for the second quarter of 2025 have been released, with mixed Apple Watch results. There’s a malfunction here.
Xiaomi leads growth and Samsung is lagging behind
In the second quarter of last year, IDC determined that Apple had shipped 5.7 million Apple Watch units, approaching Xiaomi’s 5.9 million shipping units, falling behind Huawei’s 8.9 million.
The difference is also reflected in market share, with Huawei taking the top spot at 20.3%, with Xiaomi taking 13.5% and Apple immediately taking 13.1%.
A new report released this week shows that IDC remained the same in the top three, but Xiaomi has expanded its lead over Apple (9.5 million units vs. 7.4 million) and is closer to overtaking Huawei, which has shipped 9.9 million units.
In fact, this meant that Xiaomi led segment growth with 61% solid bumps compared to the previous year, followed by Apple’s growth of 28.8%. Overall, the market saw a rise in shipments of 12.3% and closed the period with 49.2 million shipped wrist decoration devices.
Samsung was the only candidate aiming to lose market share, at 3.2% compared to 3.2% in the same period last year. It was also the only top five companies to experience negative growth with a -2.1% shipping unit.
Especially with Apple, Q2 is usually a quiet quarter as there are no new releases. As we saw this week, people tend to approach the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter. This probably means that Apple will see healthier shipments against its competitors in the next two reports from IDC.
