Apple Ships 35 Million AirPods By 2018, Expected To Strongly Grow In 2019

Apple tech giant seemingly led in ‘hearables’ or multipurpose true wireless earbuds segment last year. According to a Counterpoint Research’s report on ‘hearable’ device segment, Apple shipped around 35 million AirPods in 2018 out of the total 45 million hearable device shipments worldwide last year. Besides, the ‘hearables’ segment is expected to develop with a strong speed with the revenue calculated to increase by almost 3 times and hit 129 million hearable device mark in 2020.

The wireless accessory growth, alongside an increasing interest in hearables, boosted by the rumored AirPods 2 launch as well as similar devices from Sennheiser, Jabra, Samsung, Sony, etc will significantly contribute to the total revenue of these devices.

According to Counterpoint Research’s Research Director, Peter Richardson, 2019 will witness the gradual development of hearables to become a great market. Tech giants will drive their own innovations in real wireless hearables in this year. An increase in discretionary consumer incomes and gradually developing digital habits will also push the hearable demand all over the world. The market worldwide for real wireless hearable devices will hit the mark of US$27 billion in value in 2021.

Explaining the reasons for the rising development potential for hearable devices, Counterpoint Research’s Senior Analyst, Pavel Naiya stated that the wide use of artificial intelligence (AI) in voice technology is growing as a new interface for users with many new apps. Currently, about 3 out of 4 people consider it as a great feature for their hearable devices purchase in the future. The new interface for users needs an entirely new ground-up growth approach by ecosystem players to make it more full-featured and user-focused. Naiya said:

Hearables are reported to be real wireless devices which are driven by Bluetooth 5.0’s benefits and connectivity prowess. These hearables are mainly audio devices, but they can also offer many other utilities like features of health, triggering AI assistant, tracking movements to make them audio wearables hence the name. The development in hearable segment is expected to make the industry become a collective unit in OEMs, content and activity suppliers, component vendors (like battery supplier, speaker and lens vendors, chipmakers, etc.), and help these enterprises scale the businesses while the phone market is saturating.

Due to this saturation, the current leader in the hearable market, Apple started seeking other ways like services and accessories to improve the decreasing figures. The rumored second-generation AirPods, which will have various other features besides audio capabilities, will be the main contributor to the sales escalation in the next years. Also, Apple held no.1 in a survey of Counterpoint for the most preferred brand for hearables among consumers at present, followed by many audio giants like Jabra, Sennheiser, Bose, and Sony.