AirPods Smash Competition, Seize Online Market Share Over Xmas

Analysts at Slice Intelligence have released data suggesting that Apple’s wireless AirPods have quickly scooped up a solid quarter of the wireless headphone market, at least when it comes to online sales.

They say that December 13th, the day of the AirPods release, saw consumers spending ten times more on headphones than the pre-holiday average for 2016.

In their words: “it was the largest single day of online headphone spending last year”.

The sudden-arrival of the AirPods quite literally looks to have changed the face of the headphones market, in the US at least.

Slice say that “Prior to the AirPods’ launch, Beats headphones had generated nearly a quarter of all cordless headphone sales since January 2015.”

However, after launching on December 13th, the AirPods quickly took the top spot at 26% in the week’s following its launch.

Based on the shifts shown in Slice’s data, Apple’s rapid rise to top dog has both increased the overall size of the market and cannibalised on Beats’ share of it.

It’s expected that more market research will shed more light on the changing landscape of wireless headphonee sales in the coming months.