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A report last week by Slice Intelligence suggested that Apple's AirPods captured an estimated 26 percent share of online revenue in the wireless headphone market since launching on December 13. Ben Arnold, an executive director and industry analyst at NPD Group, has today submitted a report that claims Slice Intelligence's data "paints an incomplete picture of the wireless headphone market" (via CNET).

According to NPD's numbers, for all of December Apple captured a 2 percent share of the market in unit sales, and a 3 percent share in overall dollar sales. The discrepancy between the two sets of data lies in the methodology used by each site to gather the information.

Slice Intelligence analyzes the email receipts from a panel of 4.2 million online shoppers, while NPD's data accounts for both online sales as well as brick-and-mortar transactions. It should also be noted that NPD tracked sales for all of December, while Slice Intelligence accounted only for the period when the AirPods were on sale, December 13-31.

airpods-box.jpg

Beats still leads the market in NPD's data as well, with a 46 percent share in total sales for its line of headphones. The rest of NPD's December data is as follows:

[*]Beats had a 25 percent share (unit sales) and a 46 percent share (dollar sales)
[*]Apple had a 2 percent share (unit sales) and 3 percent share (dollar sales)
[*]Bose had 8 percent (unit sales) and 19 percent (dollar sales)
[*]LG had 10 percent (unit sales) and 7 percent (dollar sales) with Sony at 7 percent (unit sales) and 6 percent (dollar sales)
[*]Plantronics and Jaybird were at around 2 percent unit sales each but Apple is already neck-and-neck with them after only one partial month of sales

Arnold noted that Apple's AirPods launch is still "significant," despite the lower numbers presented by the NPD, and given how little time the AirPods have been on the market. The analyst also said that in a year where the Bluetooth headphone market grew 51 percent from the previous year, "the fact that Beats was able to maintain share and its position in the market means its sales grew as fast as the market did."
"Apple being able to capture 2 percent of the market in units and 3 percent in dollars with one product in its debut month is significant, given how big the headphone market is," Arnold said.
The AirPods have been mostly well-received by users since their December launch, although some have faced consistent battery issues with the device and its charging case. Apple hasn't released sales figures of its own, but CEO Tim Cook called the AirPods "a runaway success" when asked about the first few weeks of the headphones' launch in late December.

Article Link: New Data Says AirPods Have Captured Much Smaller Share of Headphone Market Than Earlier Estimates
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,069
30,943
So does this include online and B&M sales from Apple? It's just another reason all this data is worthless. None of these outfits really know they're just guessing and extrapolating. And then people run with whatever numbers fit their agenda.
 

zorinlynx

macrumors G3
May 31, 2007
8,133
17,434
Florida, USA
They might have captured more of the market if you could actually, you know... buy them. Apple needs to fix their supply chain. People will walk into the Apple Store and ask "Hey, I want to buy those new AirPods" and get told "We don't have any in stock. They're not available until March."

Will they wait? No. They will buy something that IS in stock, or go elsewhere.

Product needs to be readily available.
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,069
30,943
They might have captured more of the market if you could actually, you know... buy them. Apple needs to fix their supply chain. People will walk into the Apple Store and ask "Hey, I want to buy those new AirPods" and get told "We don't have any in stock. They're not available until March."

Will they wait? No. They will buy something that IS in stock, or go elsewhere.

Product needs to be readily available.
And yet how often do we see people say this is just marketing 101 and all intentional on Apple's part to make something appear more in demand than it really is.
 

LordQ

Suspended
Sep 22, 2012
3,582
5,653
I would gladly help that market share capture if they weren't sold out everywhere!
 

Return Zero

macrumors 65816
Oct 2, 2013
1,302
3,717
Kentucky
Yada yada yada... When you see every other person wearing them on the street, you'll know roughly how much of the market they've captured.

When the iPod came out, it took a few years to really penetrate the market, but soon enough those white earbuds were everyfreakingwhere.
 
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Juicy Box

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2014
7,517
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Well, who to believe?

I know this is not saying much, but I have yet to see one person using the AirPods.

I guess we will never really know unless Apple releases numbers, which would probably only happen if the AirPods sold a crazy amount of units.

I personally was going to get a pair of these, until i learned that the user could not remotely control the volume during phone calls.

What is the point of Apple advertising leaving your iPhone in your pocket/bad/purse if you still have to take it out to adjust the volume.
 
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b11051973

macrumors 6502
Apr 8, 2006
426
543
I bought a pair of AirPods and loved them, except they didn't fit my ears. The one size only thing really killed it for me.

I loved the tiny case and everything. So bummed they didn't work out for me. I had to send them back.
 

Return Zero

macrumors 65816
Oct 2, 2013
1,302
3,717
Kentucky
Well, logical but marketshare around here is a subjective metric. Some here go only on Tim Cook or Phil Schiller's comments.

True... As an engineer, I want to think that numbers are objective, but the fact is they can be infinitely manipulated and spun :mad:

Even SJ did it though!
 

SteveW928

macrumors 68000
May 28, 2010
1,834
1,380
Victoria, B.C. Canada
Well, logical but marketshare around here is a subjective metric. Some here go only on Tim Cook or Phil Schiller's comments.

It highlights the difference between 'market share' though, and share of the market. We're talking 18 days of time after the initial release of an anticipated product, that was late to market, over the holiday season, etc.! (compared to other products that may have been selling for years)

When people talk about 'market share' in articles like this, they are talking about units sold (sometimes just shipped) over some specific time period... and often based on a very incomplete sampling (which might be biased) and then projected.

When most people hear market share, I think they are more often thinking something like 'share of a particular product in use out there in the real world.' Like, if I pulled a truly random sampling of people off the street with said devices, I'd come up with approximately that percentage.

This is like the age-old problem of Mac 'market share' of like 6%-12% at a given time, vs what is a much higher percentage of Mac users if you're out in the real world, or maybe lower, if you walk into a typical corporate office environment. What's the use-case? How many are cash registers? How long are they in-use vs discarded? What geographical region? etc. 'Market share' doesn't take any of this into account.
 
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stephannikolic

macrumors newbie
Dec 3, 2015
16
48
This article is very confusing: first are we talking about wireless headphones or all headphones? And second: of course if you measure a period when AirPods weren't shipping Apple is going to have a lower percentage ... And finally: let's give it a six month to a year period and then see if the AirPods are a success or not.
 

ericwn

macrumors G4
Apr 24, 2016
11,797
10,349
So does this include online and B&M sales from Apple? It's just another reason all this data is worthless. None of these outfits really know they're just guessing and extrapolating. And then people run with whatever numbers fit their agenda.

Very well said. And every of these questionable data points will be good click Air for Macrumors, these days dedicated to publishing anything Apple regardless how well researched.
 

avanpelt

macrumors 68030
Jun 2, 2010
2,954
3,873
I bought a pair of AirPods and loved them, except they didn't fit my ears. The one size only thing really killed it for me.

I loved the tiny case and everything. So bummed they didn't work out for me. I had to send them back.

Yep. Earbuds are not a one-size-fits-all (or even one-size-fits-most) product. I'm not sure why Apple wants to continue to pretend that they are.
 

dotnet

macrumors 68000
Apr 10, 2015
1,592
1,286
Sydney, Australia
But this is a new rumour, it must beat the old rumours, right? Right?

Seriously, who apart from Apple execs cares about market share. I managed to get a pair, that's all what counts for me! :D
 

oneMadRssn

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,958
13,938
Beats still leads the market in NPD's data as well, with a 46 percent share in total sales for its line of headphones. The rest of NPD's December data is as follows:

[*]Beats had a 25 percent share (unit sales) and a 46 percent share (dollar sales)
[*]Apple had a 2 percent share (unit sales) and 3 percent share (dollar sales)
[*]Bose had 8 percent (unit sales) and 19 percent (dollar sales)
[*]LG had 10 percent (unit sales) and 7 percent (dollar sales) with Sony at 7 percent (unit sales) and 6 percent (dollar sales)
[*]Plantronics and Jaybird were at around 2 percent unit sales each but Apple is already neck-and-neck with them after only one partial month of sales

Arnold noted that Apple's AirPods launch is still "significant," despite the lower numbers presented by the NPD, and given how little time the AirPods have been on the market. The analyst also said that in a year where the Bluetooth headphone market grew 51 percent from the previous year, "the fact that Beats was able to maintain share and its position in the market means its sales grew as fast as the market did."

MacRumors - You summarize, and even directly quote NPD data, but you do not actually provide a link or citation to this NPD data. Can you fix that?
 
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