When it comes to the hottest, most sought-after gadgets this Black Friday season, Apple’s AirPods are arguably close to the top of the list along with other popular buys like smartphones and gaming consoles — with one recent survey even noting that Apple’s wireless headphones are the most-cited gift by teens when asked what’s at the top of their holiday wish lists this year.Walmart is one of the retailers where you can grab a discounted set of AirPods for Black Friday, thanks to its offer of $34 off a pair of AirPods 2 with the wireless charging case included. Meanwhile, because of the continued high demand fed in part by holiday deals like that one, it’s now starting to appear that Apple is about to hit another milestone relative to AirPods: The company is forecast to double its yearly AirPods sales for 2019 once again, as it also did in 2018.
That’s according to Bloomberg, quoting sources familiar with Apple’s production plans as saying demand for the headphones has been “much higher” than expected for the AirPods Pro model that debuted in October. That’s fueling estimates that Apple is expected to ship as many as 60 million AirPods units in 2019.
Demand is so high for the $249 AirPods Pro that the outlet reports Apple’s assembly partners are quickly reaching capacity. At the time of this writing, Apple’s US website was listing wait times for the AirPods Pro — which includes features like water resistance and noise cancellation — of as much as three weeks. The new Pro model, you’ll recall, followed an upgraded version of the original AirPods that were released in March for $199.
Meanwhile, another reason why AirPods are expected to be such a hit this holiday season has to do with the fact that Apple will pretty much be able to run the table on the competition. Google won’t launch its wireless earbuds until next year, while Microsoft has pushed the launch of its Surface Earbuds to the spring.
The survey we noted above was conducted by Piper Jaffray, which included more than 1,000 US consumers between the ages of 18 and 65. Looking at the teenage demographic, Piper Jaffray said that Apple ended up as the “top-listed consumer brand for teens,” with the company’s AirPods named as the most-requested product.
