China Is Fueling The Global Wearable Market, Not Apple

We’ve seen some spectacular wearable devices over the past couple of years from companies all over the world. The market as a whole has been on the rise for some time, which is always good to see. According to a new report from Canalys, global wearable shipments are on the rise, and this is thanks to the Chinese market.

As it stands, and this shouldn’t surprise anyone, Apple is ruling the wearables market, even though it only sells one type of wearable. Unlike the smartphone market, Samsung is not trailing just behind Apple. In fact, the close second and third places are Xiaomi and Huawei, respectively. There was a brief period in 2021 when Xiaomi actually surpassed Apple. The rest of 2021, 2022, 2023, and the first half of 2024 saw Apple absolutely crushing the competition. However, looking at the numbers, it seems that Xiaomi and Huawei are about to rain on Apple’s parade again.

Global wearable shipments are on the rise, thanks to Chinese companies

We’re at the very beginning of Q2 2025, so analytic companies are still gathering and processing the data from the first quarter of the year, so we don’t have those numbers. However, we know how the companies were performing up until Q4 2024.

Looking at the numbers, the global wearable market rose 4% year-over-year. Among the individual markets, the Chinese market led with a 19% jump in shipments. Meanwhile, other markets didn’t perform so hot. For example, the North American market saw an 8% decline in the same quarter. The Asia-Pacific market dropped 11% in that same quarter. Most notably, the Indian market saw a staggering 22% drop in shipments.

Where other markets faltered, the Chinese wearables market saw growth. It jumped up 19% with Huawei and Xiaomi leading the pack.

Looking at the chart below, we see that China owned 26% of the global market, but it rose to 30% in 2024. India fell from 24% to 18% and the U.S. fell from 17% to 15%. The other markets saw either little or no change.

This should come as no surprise as far as Xiaomi is concerned. It’s been one of the biggest tech companies in China over the years. The real surprise is the fact that Huawei has been able to keep pace. This company has been smacked by sanctions in the U.S., and this cut it off from much of the tech it needed to survive. Now that it’s on its feet again, it’s here to give Apple a run for its money.