But compared to the final three months of 2021, when almost 104 million pairs of true wireless earbuds were sold around the world, that’s an extremely poor result, representing a massive year-over-year decline of 23 percent.
(Almost) everyone had a bad Q4
For the entire year of 2022, the market managed to keep its contraction down to just 2 percent, although if the Q4 trend were to carry over into 2023, that drop could reach entirely new heights at the end of this year.
In case you’re wondering exactly what went wrong for TWS products during the last 90 days of 2022, the answer is basically… everything. Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and boAt’s sales figures all fell by a lot as “macroeconomic conditions” got more and more challenging, and the same goes for “other” vendors ranked below the top five.
Apple (including Beats) unsurprisingly dominated the charts for both the final quarter and the year as a whole, easily fending off arch-rival Samsung (including JBL) once again. But Cupertino’s own shipment scores were considerably lower this holiday season compared to the previous holiday season, and that was largely due to the “weaker market performance” of the third-gen AirPods.
What’s on the horizon?
Perhaps more importantly, the success of the AirPods Pro 2 is credited with the massive growth of the $200 to $299 segment, which is now larger than the $100 to $199 category although still way smaller than the sub-$100 class of true wireless earbuds.
That’s because all sectors of the global “smart personal audio” market are contracting, including good old fashioned wireless headphones that cover all your ear and “non-true” wireless earphones.
