2023-08-20 05:18:00
Manufacturers of wireless headphones rely on sound quality, while wired headphones are always popular for their convenience.
They have almost become trendy. At the time of AirPods and other Galaxy Buds, wired headphones are resisting. Robert Pattinson, Lily-Rose Depp, Bella Hadid or Kristen Stewart are always happy owners of these bits of cable, tangled at the bottom of a bag or pocket.
Also on Instagram there is even an accountwith more than 13,000 subscribers that features stars like Carla Brown or Pharrell Williams using wired headphones with more or less recent photos.
Because, no, wired headphones are not dead. Far from there.
Unbeatable price
Walking through the shelves of specialty stores, however, you can quickly get the impression that they are hidden, relegated to second place. But you have to look at the numbers: two million pairs of wired headphones were sold on the French market between January and the end of July 2023 compared to 2.2 million pairs of wireless headphones, according to data provided by GFK and transmitted by Fnac-Darty to Tech&Co.
Wired headphones, “it’s not a market that will collapse”, assures Auxane Hervé, head of headphone products for Fnac-Darty. “This product is always sought after for its practical side to avoid the lack of battery or the loss, or even in troubleshooting”.
Wired phones are all the more sought after since phone manufacturers no longer provide them in their boxes.
But it is above all the price that attracts consumers: on average, a pair of wired headphones is 15 euros compared to 80 euros for wireless headphones.
In reality, the uses are not the same: for wireless headphones (true wireless), manufacturers rely on sound quality. “Customers are looking for two things: noise reduction. Today brands have integrated this mechanism into most wireless headphones. Second, with the rise of teleworking, customers also want the possibility of connecting to several Bluetooth devices, to easily switch from a computer to a telephone”, explains Auxane Hervé.
The leader in the “true wireless” market remains Apple and its famous AirPods, marketed since 2016, with a 40% market share, compared to 66% in 2020. Followed by Samsung, JBL, Sony then Bose.
Wireless more and more accessible…
We still observe a transfer of some customers to wireless headphones when they leaned more towards wired headphones. This is explained by the marketing of low-cost wireless headphones, with an entry level of 29 to 50 euros.
This is all the more true since new smartphones no longer necessarily have a jack to connect headphones. Finally, it is also interesting for brands: wireless headphones represent 182 million euros in total turnover against 30 million euros for wired headphones. Manufacturers are therefore adapting their production strategy.
…and very high-end wired
However, some brands are still relying on wired headphones to offer quality products, but at much higher prices such as the Sennheiser IE 600 headphones sold at 799 euros.
On the helmet side, the trend is also on the rise. Since the resumption of travel, customers have been looking for more noise-isolating and more comfortable products. With inflation, the Fnac-Darty group is also seeing a boom in sales of refurbished helmets, “three-digit growth”, specifies the product manager.
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