Apple held the top rank by shipping 1.6m watches.
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But, according to IDC, the smartwatch market saw its first decline in the second quarter of 2016, with just 3.5 million units shipped, down from 5.1 million units during the same quarter previous year.
“Despite a down quarter, Apple remains far and away the market leader in smartwatches”, said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas, with traditional watchmakers such as Casio, Fossil and Tag Heuer’s recent attempts to break into the wearable-tech market making only a limited impact.
“Every vendor faces similar challenges related to fashion and functionality, and though we expect improvements next year, growth in the remainder of 2016 will likely be muted”, Ubrani said.
Despite their increases – and those of LG and Garmin, indeed – the overall market dropped from 5.1m shipped a year back, to 3.5m in Q2 this year.
Earlier this year IDC forecast that sales of wearables would reach 110 million units in 2016, with smartwatches accounting for about 28.3 million of those units.
Apple has not released any sales figures for the Apple Watch since it first went on sale in April 2015.
The Apple Watch saw a hefty drop in global shipments last quarter but still managed to top the charts.
The research firm said Apple Watch 2.0, along with updates to watchOS, could help drive existing user refresh.
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The smartwatch market is struggling to get legs largely because of a lack of compelling, watch-specific functions and use cases, according to developers and analysts. “Combine these with the brand recognition and distribution these brands already have, and it’s reasonable to expect the smartwatch market to grow from here”. Continued platform development, cellular connectivity, and an increasing number of applications all point to a smartwatch market that will be constantly changing.
