AirPods Sold Out Lightning Fast This Holiday Season

 

Consumers wanting to purchase Apple’s new AirPods before Christmas will be unable to obtain a pair of the wireless headphones until at least January.

These are reportedly out of stock at official Apple stores worldwide. They are even unobtainable at third-party retailers like Walmart and Target. Apple’s online store is still offering the earbuds for sale, but will not be able to ship them out before the end of the year.

AirPods were rolled out in December 2016 with much fanfare. However, initially, they did not pose much of a threat to other brands of headphones such as Beats and Bose. Nonetheless, they quickly became more popular as the year went by.

By September 2017, the headphones’ sales made up 85% of all revenue earned from wireless headphone sales in the United States, according to reports. As Apple struggled to keep up with rising demand, it brought Luxshare on board.

This is a Chinese manufacturing company,  one that could help increase the headphones’ output. Apple even debuted a holiday ad campaign during Thanksgiving to boost sales.

This helped make the AirPods one of the most popular items purchased by American consumers on Cyber Monday. By December 17, media outlets were reporting that high demand had caused Apple to run out of the headphones.

Industry analysts have predicted that wireless headphones sales will double next year. In 2016, an estimated 14 million pairs were sold. This number is expected to increase to 28 million pairs sold in 2018.

Apple does not release official numbers for its phone accessories, but the company reported $5.6 billion in 2017 sales from “other products”, a category which includes the earbuds.

Reportedly, the earbuds will get an update in the second half of 2018. The second-generation version will ostensibly have smaller parts, but may also come with a higher price tag. Apple has also updated the charging case for the earbuds and will ship the new one sometime next year.