Apple is faced with a dilemma arising from the poor sales that AirPods Max are expected to have. The analyst Ming-Chi Kuo warns that it is more than likely that at the time of launching the AirPods 3 he will have to decide whether to eliminate the second version of that model from the market or to continue since the sales of the other AirPods model, the Max, are not meeting sales expectations.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has established in a new report, something that we have already told you about the third version of the AirPods. Mass production It won't start until the third quarter of 2021. Now, it is not known if the Californian company will suspend the AirPods 2 at launch, since Kuo sees problems with Apple's general range of AirPods, including the newly released Airpods Max.
Kuo says:
In terms of product mix, we predict that AirPods 2 shipments will decline significantly to around 3 million units in 3Q21 (versus 12 million units in 3Q20). We believe the product transition is the main reason for the decrease in AirPods 2 shipping. We believe that it is still difficult to determine whether the AirPods 2 will end production after the AirPods 3 go into mass production. If AirPods 2 will reach end of life after AirPods 3 mass production we estimate that AirPods 3, AirPods Pro, AirPods 2 and AirPods Max will account for approximately 40%, 28%, 31% and 1% of total shipments, respectively, in 2021.
You have read well. Kuo expects AirPods Max to account for at most 1% of all AirPods sales in 2021. And he sees the overall range diminishing against competition from lower-cost rivals. Hence from Apple should not be happy with these figures. Rather it is to rethink if they have made a mistake of bulk launched this product. In addition to being expensive and obsolete in some elements, we have the condensation problems.