Report: Apple sold $6 billion worth of AirPods in 2019. Even more next year

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AirPods up close
AirPods up close (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple is doing extremely well out of AirPods right now.
  • One analyst thinks 2019 sales will reach $6 billion.
  • And 2020 will be even bigger for AirPods.

2019 saw Apple's AirPods sales double, bringing $6 billion into the company according to Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein (via CNBC). And things look even more promising for 2020.

The analyst notes that Apple could sell as many as 85 million AirPods next year – amounting to around $15 billion in revenue for the year. Saccanaghi also points out that if the growth continues into 2021 AirPids will become Apple's third-largest business.

The strength of AirPods this holiday season is made clear when you see the difficulty stores are having when trying to keep stock levels high. Apple itself is struggling to provide AirPods and AirPods Pro to customers before Christmas and it's been that way for some time.

However, despite all this Sacconaghi suggests caution should be in the air, especially if market saturation becomes an issue for Apple.

Given AirPods' extraordinarily steep adoption curve and rapid saturation of the iPhone installed base, we see a dramatic deceleration in AirPods revenue growth by 2021 or 22, to single digit growth rates or possibly lower.

Apple's AirPods start at $159 for the standard earbuds and go up to $249 for AirPods Pro.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.