AirPods have definitely become an unexpectedly popular Apple product.
Currently listed with a shipping estimate of 1-3 business days on the Apple Online Store, Apple is predicted to move around twenty million AirPod units this year—a noteworthy achievement given the supply-demand imbalance up unit recently.
Arthur Liao, an analyst at Fubon Securities, estimated that shipments of AirPods would total around 20 million units this year and could increase to around 30 million units in 2018.
Although Inventec is currently the sole manufacturer of AirPods, industry sources claim that China-based Luxshare Precision Industry is working hard to procure orders to assemble the wireless earbuds for Apple in 2018.
In other news, Inventec is estimated to assemble just 50,000 HomePod units for the device’s December launch, but production is said to pick up steam and hit four million HomePods next year. Inventec officials today hinted at a future HomePod with 3D-sensing features, including facial and image recognition based on iPhone X’s Face ID technology.
Do you own AirPods? If so, are you impressed by them so far?
Let us know in the comments!
X-ray image of the AirPods charging case via iFixit