The Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple dominated the 2015 smartwatch market, accounting for some 12 million units, according to the Singapore-based market research firm Canalys.
Canalys estimated Apple Watches accounted for two thirds of all smartwatch shipments. The firm also revealed Samsung returned to second place in Q4 2015, thanks to the improved design of the Gear S2, which drew a much better consumer response than previous wearable efforts from the company. Samsung was followed by Pebble in third place and Huawei in fourth place.
"Cashing in on holiday sales, Apple managed to rack up more than five million shipments in the fourth quarter," Canalys Analyst Jason Low said.
Strong holiday shipments for Fitbit, Apple and Garmin drove growth of more than 60% for all wearable bands, the firm added. Basic bands exceeded 37 million shipments for the year. Fitbit set a quarterly shipments record as it comfortably led the category. Xiaomi held second place, shipping 12 million Mi Bands during 2015.
Across the entire wearable bands segment, Fitbit led all vendors in the fourth quarter, followed by Apple and Xiaomi.
"Software increasingly belongs on the wrist, and this is the direction the market is going," Canalys Analyst Daniel Matte said. "As the next step along this path, the Fitbit Blaze is the right product for the company to develop. It is competitively priced and is still being squarely focused on fitness."
In its latest report, Gartner stated the wearable market would grow from 232 million units sold in 2015, to more than 322 million in 2017.
Meanwhile, the Austin, Texas-based mobile and Internet banking provider Malauzai Software, which announced the launch of its SmartwearApp last spring, ended 2015 on the rise. The total number of downloads for Malauzai's mobile banking SmartApps in Google Play and the Apple App Store surpassed one million end-user downloads.
In addition, more than 400 community financial institutions used the Malauzai solution across consumer, business and employee facing applications.
Malauzai credited its growth to new and expanded client relationships and stronger analysis of user behavior. As part of this trend, Malauzai's bank and credit union customers also experienced strong growth, witnessing an average expansion of more than 30% in terms of its active number of mobile bankers.
"It has been a banner year for digital banking overall," Tom Shen, CEO for Malauzai, said. "The company is in a strong position to leverage the huge opportunities that await us in the coming year. We believe that we have the right solution set and are excited and energized to see how far we can grow in 2016."
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Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
