New Data Suggests Apple AirPods Are Popular with Consumers
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but new data from Slice Intelligence suggests that Apple AirPods are popular with consumers as the overall wireless headphone market took flight in 2016.
Already nabbed one-quarter of the market
In just a short time, the AirPods have risen to the top of the market.
Launch day in December was met with excitement as it was the biggest online spending day for headphones in 2016, beating out Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
And since then, Apple’s device has captured more than a quarter of the wireless headphone purchases made online. Apple-owned Beats is in third place with 15.4 percent of the market. All told, Apple owns more than 41 percent of the growing online market.
In general, at least with online shoppers, wireless headphone sales have continued to soar. Wireless models accounted for 50 percent of headphones sold in 2016 and 75 percent in December.
Six-week wait
Just double-tap either AirPod to activate Siri.
AirPods feature Apple’s new custom Apple W1 chip, which uses optical sensors and a motion accelerometer to detect when the earbuds are in your ears.
The wireless earbuds deliver up to five hours of music playback on a single charge. The included charging case holds additional charges for more than 24 hours of listening time. A quick 15 minutes in the case can give you up to three hours of listening time.
If you’re interested, take a look at our complete review of the AirPods. My colleague Bryan M. Wolfe noted that the earbuds were overall enjoyable even though the earbuds are far from a perfect product.
AirPods can be purchased now directly from Apple and other retailers for $159. Any order placed from Apple today has a shipping estimate of six weeks, which would be sometime in late February.
