COVID-19 won’t stop Apple shipping 90 million AirPods this year

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AirPods Pro are so popular Apple is struggling to keep up with demand
Coronavirus is sweeping the world, but at least you can listen to music wirelessly.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Even with the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus battering Apple’s supply chain, Apple hasn’t revised its shipping forecasts for its crazy popular AirPods, a report published Friday claims.

Digitimes notes that Apple is “expected to stick” to its plan to ship 90 million pairs of AirPods in 2020. That’s an increase of 50% from Apple’s shipments last year. The report cites sources from the supply chain.

AirPods have been one of Apple’s biggest hit products in recent years. Apple doesn’t release unit sales for its wearable devices. However, analyst Daniel Ives from Wedbush Securities previously predicted that the total number of AirPods in 2019 may have hit 65 million. He also predicted that number to grow to 90 million in 2020, a figure seemingly backed up by today’s report.

90 million AirPods in 2020

Despite seasonal shortages, Apple’s AirPods helped the company sell $10 billion worth of wearables and accessories in the holiday quarter, a 37% jump from a year ago. Revenue for the wearables sector grew 17% over the holiday quarter to a new all-time record of $12.7 billion.

A recent rumor has suggested that Apple will debut a new AirPods lineup this year called AirPods Pro Lite. It’s not yet clear whether this is an additional line of AirPods. It could, alternatively, mean a redesign of the current basic AirPods with some of the Pro features or appearance elements.

At the start of this year, Apple reportedly added an additional supplier for its ultra-popular AirPods Pro. While that certainly doesn’t avoid the impact of coronavirus on the supply chain, it does diversify manufacturing in a way that could help Apple. At the very least, it means more production lines making more AirPods.

Source: Digitimes

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