Apple's AirPods have been a runaway success for the company. The wearables, or, shudder, hearables as some call them, are every bit a fashion statement and status symbol as they are incredibly useful earbuds.
They've helped spawn an entire category of "true wireless" earbuds that are being aped by competitors. And AirPods Pros, which provide an improved design and active noise-cancelling technology, are the most coveted of all.
They're in such demand, in fact, that according to at least one analyst, the $249 AirPods Pros alone could account for as much as $6 billion in revenue for Apple in 2020. But the ongoing spread of the coronavirus may impede those predictions.
The rise of the AirPods
When Apple's (AAPL) iPod first came out, the EarPods proved to be incredibly important for the virality of the devices. The iPhone's EarPods were just as important when the handset first came to market. It was a means for users to signal to the world that they were on the bleeding edge of consumer tech.
And that has proven just as true with the AirPods. According to Jefferies analyst Kyle McNealy, web traffic to Apple's AirPods page was up 454% year-over-year for the December quarter, with 56% of that coming from the AirPods Pros page.
In fact, online deliveries of AirPods Pros ordered through Apple's site are backed up for at least a month. Brick-and-mortar Apple Stores are also sold out through the month, though depending on your location, you may be able to find some of the earbuds in stock.
Since the AirPods hit the market, a slew of knockoff devices have been launched sporting the same design and aesthetic, though none have matched the hype surrounding Apple's offerings.
While the original AirPods, which go for $159, and the AirPods with wireless charging case, which cost $199, have certainly been popular, the AirPods Pros appear to have the chance of becoming a full-fledged gold mine for Apple.
"We’re modeling for $5.97bn of revenue generated by AirPods Pro in FY’20," McNealy wrote in an analyst note. "Applying an average gross margin of 32.5% and company average opex rates yields $953m of net income. This translates to $0.22 per share and to 2% Y/Y earnings growth for the company versus Fiscal 2019."
Apple doesn't break out the revenue for AirPods alone, but McNealy has estimated that all AirPods models brought in $7.25 billion in 2019. So to see the Pros power $6 billion on their own in 2020 would be a heck of a jump.
For comparison, Apple revealed that it saw $10 billion in revenue in its entire Wearables, Home, and Accessories segment, which the Pros are a part of, in the first quarter of 2020.
Coronavirus worries
There is, however, the potential for the ongoing spread of the coronavirus to derail some of those sales by limiting output from factories in China. According to a report by Nikkei Asian Review, Apple is pushing Chinese suppliers to produce some 45 million AirPods in the first half of 2020.
And while many suppliers are expected to come back online following the Lunar New Year break, which was extended because of the virus, there may not be enough components available for factories to reach the kind of output levels Apple is reportedly seeking.
With demand for AirPods and AirPods Pros already high, and wait times for Pros stretching up to a month, any further delays could prove problematic for Apple moving forward.
Apple's retail stores have also been closed due to the coronavirus, and don't expect to reopen until Feb. 9, which could further impact AirPods sales.
McNealy, however, says there shouldn't be much of an issue in the long term, as many of Apple's manufacturing partners are located well outside of Wuhan, China, where the virus first took root.
For Apple, though, the pop culture value of the AirPods and AirPods Pros might be enough to keep consumers waiting on new shipments to jump to competing devices.
After all, if you want to be seen wearing AirPods, there's only one way to get them.
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