Apple loses share of wireless earphone market despite growing AirPods sales

Apple will grow its share of the wireless wireless market by a third this year, despite losing its dominant position in space to more affordable alternatives, according to Counterpoint Research (via Bloomberg).

Apple accounted for nearly half of sales of genuine wireless earbuds in 2019 and is expected to grow to 82 million units this year, according to the report. However, its advantage was widened by the advent of Chinese rival markets, shrinking its share to just one-third of the market (35%). Xiaomi remains in second place with 10%, while Samsung sits in third place with a share of 6%.

According to the report, specialized Chinese brands such as the $ 90 Lypertek Tevi offer comparable performance to Apple AirPods at a lower price, while the $ 180 1More True Wireless ANC competes with the AirPods Pro sound-igniting smarts, which cost $ 250. Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds Live are also ANC-equipped and come in at under $ 170.

“The segment from low to mid-end, including Chinese brands and US manufacturers such as JLab, is part of the premium market,” said Counterpoint analyst Liz Lee. “Competition between Samsung and Apple is likely to intensify in the latter half of the year, as positive reviews from Buds Live and increased investment from Samsung are expected to close the gap between the two,” she added. ta.

Samsung is expected to more than double its actual wireless earbud sales this year, growing from 8 million to 17 million, while Apple’s AirPods family is expected to grow from 61 million to 82 million.

It is rumored that Apple is working on a third generation version of the irAirPods‌, although Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said that the third generation -AirPods‌ will not arrive in 2020, with mass production to begin in ‘ the first half of 2021.

The third generation ‌AirPods‌ is expected to adopt a more compact integrated system-in-package (SiP), similar to the SiP used in the ‌AirPods Pro‌, enabling the audio features of the ‌AirPods‌ to be integrated into a housing that is more similar in design to the ‌AirPods Pro‌. Today ‘AirPods’ use surface mount technology (SMT).

There have also been several rumors suggesting that Apple is working on a version of AirPods Pro that has a cheaper price tag and no Active Noise Cancellation. Jon Prosser and another lover, “l0vetodream”, believe that these are “AirPods X”, a version of the ‌AirPods Pro‌ designed for sports and running.

DigiTimes has referred to these entry-level earbuds as the “AirPods Pro Lite”, and claims that Apple originally planned to launch this new ‌AirPods launch in early 2020, but has postponed them until the second half of 2021.

According to Apple analyst ‌Ming-Chi Kuo‌, these “‌AirPods Pro‌ Lite” or “‌AirPods‌ X” earbuds, which may launch in September or October, are not ‌AirPods‌ at all, but are instead headphones in the Beats family.