New Delhi, Jun 5 (IANS): With four million shipments in the first quarter of 2018, Apple has become the leader in the global wearables market, according to a report by International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker.

Apple Watch shipments grew 13.5 per cent over the previous year as the launch of a cellular-connected Watch entered additional markets even as the wearable device shipments slowed down, the report said on Monday.

The iPhone market's growth has also outpaced the entire wearables market allowing the company to increase its share from 14.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 to 16.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2018.

"Worldwide shipments of wearable devices grew 1.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2018 as shipments reached 25.1 million units," IDC said in a statement.

The growth was far lower than the 18 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth one year ago largely due to the 9.2 per cent decline in shipments of basic wearables. During the same period, smart wearables by Apple, Fitbit and numerous fashion brands grew 28.4 per cent as consumer preferences continued to shift towards smarter devices," according to the statement.

Xiaomi grabbed the second position with 14.8 per cent share of unit shipments.

"However, with the lowest average selling price (ASP) among the top five companies, Xiaomi was only able to capture 1.8 per cent of the dollar value of the market during this quarter," the company added.

Wearables maker Fitbit ranked third during this quarter, despite a decline of 28.1 per cent.

Chinese company Huawei managed to capture the fourth position during this quarter with 1.3 million shipments and five per cent market share, followed by Garmin with 1.3 million shipments and five per cent market share.