According to the reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will be launching the 3rd generation of its AirPods in the first quarter of the next year. The mass production of the new AirPods will start at the end of 2020. Moreover, the note to investors reveals that the highly-anticipated AirPods Pro is not coming any time soon. The Cupertino-based company will only start mass production in the end of 2021. So we’re not going to see them until 2022.
Kuo reveals, that while the market is expecting the new hearables, Apple will serve customers with a new Beats model. Moreover, he reveals that the demand is rising for the AirPods Pro, while the search for the basic earbuds is decreasing. This comes despite the whole fact that the Pro hearables are much more expensive than the basic version.
Gizchina News of the week
Based on this, the analyst expects shipments for the vanilla variant to decline up to 40% QoQ and reach 11 to 13 million sold units in the second half of 2020. The estimates reveal that Apple might ship up to 90 million sets of AirPods by the end of 2020. As a result, he expects that the AirPods will account for 50 to 55 million units in this amount while 35 to 40 million units of the Pro will be shipped to customers.
According to several reports, the AirPods lineup was affected by the logistic problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
