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Xiaomi Mi 5's base variant apparently comes with an underclocked Snapdragon 820. Reuters

Unlike the smartphones, phablets and tablets market, smart wearables arena is still at the nascent stage. While Apple, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Fitbit, Nike and others have been ruling this area, Xiaomi has silently progressed significantly in 2015.

According to the research firm IDC, wearable gadgets’ worldwide shipments grew 126.9 percent year-on-year during the fourth quarter of 2015. To be specific, companies apparently shipped 27.4 million units during the holiday quarter. Speaking of full year stats, device makers reportedly shipped a total of 78.1 million units, which translates to 171.6 percent growth when compared to 2014.

Among Fitbit, Apple, Xiaomi, Samsung and Garmin, Xiaomi apparently saw maximum growth in the wearables domain. The Chinese tech giant posted a whopping 951.8 percent year-on-year growth when compared to the previous year.

As it turns out, Xiaomi focused on selling dirt cheap fitness trackers in China. The starting price of trackers like Mi Band was as low as $11. The latest inexpensive Xiaomi gadget is the Mi Band Pulse with a heart rate monitor on board. It sells for just $13. Devices like these apparently helped Xiaomi make huge year-over-year improvement among other companies on the given list.

IDC
Top five wearables vendors. IDC, Business Wire

Moving on to other vendors, Fitbit takes the numero uno spot by selling 8.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Speaking of the year as a whole, it sold a total of 21 million units.

Apple, on the other hand, has not officially declared the exact number of Apple Watch units sold, GSM Arena reported. However, for the fourth quarter of 2015, IDC said, Apple came second in the number of units sold category with 4.1 million Apple Watches shipped across the globe.

The top three spots have been occupied by Fitbit, Apple and Xiaomi with regard to number of shipments during the period. Samsung and Garmin have placed themselves in the fourth and fifth spots with 1.3 million and 1 million shipped units, respectively.