At the moment, AirPods themselves are an amazing line of business within Apple. Both at the level of numbers and at the level of product, quality and own brand. Apple has four different models of AirPods for sale (2nd and 3rd generation, Pro and Max) and, despite this, they are not “cheap” wireless headphones. Although we already know that at Apple it is tradition. According to analyst Jeff Pu, Apple would be working on increasing the AirPods line with a “Lite” model that does compete in price with other competing entry models.
Despite the popularity and increased sales of “Accessories,” where Apple encompasses AirPods, Jeff Pu reports that, based on industry sources, the demand for AirPods will decrease in 2023. It even reaches specific figures, where shipments of AirPods would drop from 73 million units (or pairs of units) in 2022 to the 63 million that would be expected in 2023. He blames this on the “low” demand for AirPods 3 already that Apple would not launch new models during this new year. Although we all expect a new version, at least, of the Max.
Jeff Pu claims that the Cupertino company has been working on the AirPods “Lite”. Despite this, it is not clear what they would look like exactly what characteristics they will have, but Pu describes it as a “lower-priced product” to compete with non-Apple headphones.
With the launch of the AirPods 3 in 2021, Apple has kept the previous generation AirPods 2 available in stores with a current price of 159 euros, while the AirPods 3 cost 209 euros in its cheapest version. That being the case, we assume that these “Lite” AirPods will cost less than 159 euros. Another (and not too far-fetched) option for Apple would be to simply lower the price of the second-generation AirPods even further, perhaps to €99, the price of HomePod Mini.
In 2022, Apple has introduced the second generation of AirPods Pro with significant improvements, including better noise cancellation and a new charging case with the U1 chip to easily locate the device. However, there are not too many rumors about when Apple plans to renew the AirPods Max despite everything pointing to this 2023. Will they arrive with new features and colors as expected?