According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is said to be working on high-end over-ear headphones that are expected to launch later this year. In the latest research note outlining, KGI predicts his expectations for Apple’s “acoustic accessories” pipeline later this year along with AirPods.
Furthermore, he says that Apple to soon have own-brand, high-end over-ear headphones with all-new design as convenient as the AirPods with better sound quality and have it ship beginning Q4 2018 at earliest. Primax & SZS will be the key suppliers that will benefit from high ASPs. Primax will assemble thanks to its familiarity with the acoustic business, and SZS is likely to use MIM technology advantages as leverage to become the exclusive or main MIM part supplier.
The new Apple headphones will be priced higher than AirPods and should help boost the business momentum of Primax as the assembly provider. We recently learned that Apple will be launching the upgraded AirPods with water-resistance, and with Apple’s voice assistant hands-free which is an improvement over the current AirPods.