Xiaomi now world's second-biggest wearables maker

'China's Apple' rise rapidly to account for a quarter of market, but effect of Apple Watch launch remains to be seen

Chinese technology firm Xiaomi has become the world's second largest wearables manufacturer in less than a year, data shows.

Xiaomi's recently released fitness tracker the Mi Band, launched in the second half of 2014, sold 2.8m copies in the first quarter of 2015, data from research firm IDC showed. Xiaomi accounted for 24.6% of the wearables market, making it second only to Fitbit's 3.9m devices sold and 34.2% of the market.