San Francisco, May 31 (IANS): Riding on the popularity of wrist-worn and ear-worn devices, global shipments of wearable devices reached 49.6 million units during the first quarter (Q1) of 2019, up 55.2 per cent from the previous year, the International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Friday.

The top five wearable companies by shipment volume, market share, and year-over-year (YoY) growth in Q1 2019 included Apple at the top spot followed by Xiaomi and Huawei with 25.8 per cent, 13.3 per cent and 10 per cent market share, respectively.

According to IDC's "Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker", wrist-worn wearables accounted for the majority of the market with 63.2 per cent share while ear-worn devices experienced the fastest growth (135.1 per cent YoY) and accounted for 34.6 per cent of all wearables shipped.

"The elimination of headphone jacks and the increased usage of smart assistants both inside and outside the home have been driving factors in the growth of ear-worn wearables," Jitesh Ubrani, Research Manager for IDC Mobile Device Trackers, said in a statement.

The Apple Watch became highly successful at capturing unit share, but more importantly dollar share as the average selling price (ASP) of these watches has increased from $426 in Q1 2018 to $455 in the latest quarter.

"Looking ahead, this will become an increasingly important category as major platform and device makers use ear-worn devices as an on-ramp to entice consumers into an ecosystem of wearable devices that complement the smartphone but also offer the ability to leave the phone behind when necessary," Ubrani said.

Xiaomi ranked second due to the popularity of its Mi Band, which accounted for roughly five million shipments, while Huawei ended the quarter with a market-beating growth of 282.2 per cent.

Huawei's success in the wearables market has been directly tied to its success in smartphones as the two products are often bundled together, said IDC.