I ran across a great article from Techcrunch that looked at the top 3 wearable vendors and they pointed out that most of us have probably never heard of the #3 wearable on that list. For those following along at home, the top 3 are Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Xiamoi Mi Band.
Everyone in the US has heard about Fitbit and the Apple Watch. However, my guess is that few in the US know about the Xiaomi Mi Band since 97% of its sales are in China. Here’s a look at the breakdown of wearable market share per the Techcrunch article linked above:
According to IDC, market leader Fitbit shipped 4.7 million wearable units in the third quarter, taking a 22.2 percent market share. Apple shipped 3.9 million units, for a 18.6 percent market share, while Xiaomi shipped 3.7 million units, or 17.4 percent of the market.
For all intents and purposes, the Xiaomi product line is very similar to the Fitbit product line. Some might even call it a knock off. The Mi Band originally started with steps, hours of sleep, and calories burned. Now the Mi Band Pulse also does heart rate. Have we heard this story before?
It’s really easy in our US centric minds to forget about what else is happening around the world. That’s particularly true of China which is one of the fastest growing wearable markets out there. I saw that first hand when I met all these Chinese digital health companies at CES. What will be interesting to watch is if and when some of these successful Chinese companies come to the US. We’ll see how they do.