The wearables market is “shifting focus” according to IDC, although it has not been without some pain as the market evolves.

In Q4 2016, the market saw year-on-year growth of 16.9 per cent to reach 33.9 million units. For the full year, growth of 25 per cent took the sector past 100 million units.

The research firm said in the early days, the wearables segment was split between “smart” and “basic” devices, with the former having the ability to run third-party apps.

However, despite the additional features and technology available on smart wearables, their “utility and necessity has been questionable at best” – and WatchOS and Android Wear now have pivoted towards fitness and health, as this was “the only use case with any stickiness”.

“Basic wearables started out as single-purpose devices tracking footsteps and morphing into multi-purpose wearable devices, fusing together multiple health and fitness capabilities and smartphone notifications. It’s enough to blur the lines against most smart wearables, to the point where first generation smartwatches are no better than most fitness trackers,” said Ramon Llamas, research manager for the IDC wearables team.

Aside from the top five players (see chart below, click to enlarge), new entrants including fashion brand Fossil and emerging companies BBK and Li-Ning are tapping into niche segments – luxury/fashion, child monitoring and step-counting shoes, respectively.

“As the technology disappears into the background, hybrid watches and other fashion accessories with fitness tracking are starting to gain traction. This presents an opportunity to sell multiple wearables to a single consumer under the guise of ‘fashion.’  More importantly, though, it helps build an ecosystem and helps vendors provide consumers with actionable insights thanks to the large amounts of data collected behind the scenes,” said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC mobile device trackers.

The company also said 2016 proved “there is more to wearables than just wrist-worn devices”. Ear-worn devices passed 1 per cent of all shipments for the first time in a quarter, and sensor-laden clothing accounted for more than 1 per cent of full-year shipments. While these numbers were “miniscule”, they do show promise as more vendors bring products to market.