Global Audio Market Continues Growth Trajectory

Between January and June 2019, GfK recorded total sales of €7.9 billion for the global audio devices market, excl. North America. Compared to the first half of 2018, this is an increase of 15 percent.

Headphones and headsets are the key driver of growth, together with portable Bluetooth speakers and loudspeakers for the home. There is plenty of growth potential in smart devices with embedded voice assistants and in loudspeakers to enhance the entertainment sound at home.

Global audio markets have the opportunity to prolong their growth trajectory, experiencing positive results almost uniformly around the globe. Largest contributors are the CIS countries with a 41 percent increase and China up 38 percent. Headphones/headsets remained the highest turnover segment, followed by Bluetooth speakers, audio home systems and loudspeakers.

In the first half year 2019, in-ear headphones saw a steady sales value growth of 55 percent and accounted with a sales volume of nearly €3 billion for 70 percent of the total headphone turnover. Almost 50 percent of all wireless in-ear devices sold in 2019 were true wireless ones (with two separate earpieces). The global market for these headphones grew by almost 300 percent from 2018 to 2019. This high consumer demand has attracted the attention of more and more brands so the number of manufacturers shot up by a factor of three in the first half of 2019. This caused the average sales price to drop considerably to 85 EUR.

Sales of over-ear headphones grew by 11 percent. Western Europe is the largest market, followed by China and the Developed Asian countries. In the first half year of 2019, Bluetooth over-ear headphones on average were sold for 90 EUR. Sales of multiroom devices, which play different songs in different rooms, increased by 4 percent in the first half of 2019. For the first time this year GfK has witnessed the advent of Smart Displays as a new form factor for digital home assistants.

In the first six months of 2019, a total of 41 percent of the global audio sales value came from online sales, compared to 36 percent in the same period last year. In contrast to other categories, the increasing online importance does not influence the demand peaks throughout the year. Being a classical gifting category, the audio sales peak is still around Christmas time, rather than in November or during other online retailer events like Black Friday.