Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Worldwide personal and entry-level storage (PELS) shipments declined by -6.4% year over year and -13.6% sequentially, finishing the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15) with 17.6 million units, according to the International Data Corporation (www.idc.om). Shipment values declined along with unit shipments, down -11.6% from a year ago to U$1.5 billion, according to the research group.

The wearable band market grew over 150% as more than 7 million units were shipped in the first quarter of 2015, according to Canalys (www.canalys.com).

First place Fitbit saw major year-on-year volume growth, while greatly increased shipments of the affordable Mi Band, predominantly in China, secured Xiaomi second place. Garmin also had a strong quarter and rolled out two new products in its vívo line, says the research group. Canalys forecasts that 20 million Apple Watches will be shipped in 2015.

Worldwide Chromebook sales to end users is on pace to reach 7.3 million units in 2015, a 27% increase from 2014, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). Education is the primary market for Chromebooks and represented 72% of the global Chromebook market in 2014, says the research group.

“Since the first model launched in mid-2011, Google’s Chromebook has seen success mainly in the education segment across all regions,” says Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner. “In 2014, the education sector purchased 72% of Chromebooks in EMEA, 69% in Asia/Pacific, and 60%in the U.S.”
 

The worldwide Internet of Things (IoT) market is expected to grow 19% in 2015, led by digital signage, according to a new forecast from International Data Corporation (www.idc.com). The second annual forecast focuses on growing IoT use in 11 vertical industries, including consumer, retail, healthcare, government, manufacturing, transportation, and other industries, while also sizing IoT opportunities for 25 vertical-specific use cases.