Today, Ming-Chi Kuo reiterated that he expects the next-generation of AirPods Pro to arrive next year and feature ‘innovative’ health tracking functionality. This lines up with an earlier report from Bloomberg.
However, in the near term, Kuo is cutting his estimates for Apple’s headphones shipments, mainly because of increasing competition and lack of new AirPods models. However, the recent release of the Beats-branded Studio Buds will offset some of that decline.
For the full calendar year, Kuo has cut his estimates for Apple’s AirPods shipments to 70-75 million units. He says that the market for truly wireless earbuds is increasingly competitive and in the absence of anything new from Apple, customers are looking at other options.
The market share decline is somewhat offset by the Beats Studio Buds, which Kuo sees as an attractive proposition for customers thanks to its lower price. Kuo says Apple is now effectively wielding the Beats brand as a lower-priced option targeting consumers both inside and outside the Apple ecosystem.
With the launch of AirPods 3 later this year and the release of AirPods Pro 2 next year, Kuo expects that Apple’s overall total wireless headphone shipments will exceed 100 million in 2022, representing a 30% increase over 2021.
