Don’t believe everything you read about AirPod sales

We can start this article with a fact: AirPods are incredibly popular. From there though, things start to get a little muddier.

It’s pretty standard for Apple to not disclose sales figures, which means analyst firms have a tough job tracking the company. And one of the latest to put out a report is Strategy Analytics, who have looked at the tech giant’s progress with its true wireless earbuds.

The report claims that Apple sold “nearly 60 million” AirPods in 2019, taking more than a 50 percent share of the global true wireless earbuds market, and raking in 71 percent of its revenue.

An article by the Yonahp News Agency gave some more specific figures on this. It stated that the Strategy Analytics report said Apple had sold precisely 58.7 million AirPods, giving it a 54.5 percent market share in 2019.

So far, so good, right? Anyone who has spent any time, well, anywhere will have seen a gamut of AirPods, so that 50 percent share feels right on the surface. And it could well be factual too. But — and there’s always a but — there’s also a strong chance Apple’s success is being oversold.

AirPod sales might not be what they seem

Neil Cybart, an Apple analyst, covered AirPod sales in a piece on Above Avalon . In it, he states that in “FY2019 Apple sold 35 million pairs of AirPods” — a number he came to after going through Apple statements and commentary. To back this up further, Cybart draws a parallel between the sales of the first three years of the iPhone (“60 million“) and AirPods (“61 million“), the latter figure what other analysts are claiming Apple sold in 2019 alone.

Now, it’s not outlandish to say there’s a big difference between 35 and 58.7 million sales in a year.

The question then is does this matter? If we can all agree that AirPods are dominating the market, who cares if they make up 50 percent of sales, or 30 percent? They’re still the defining technology of the true wireless earbud market, right? Right?

Wrong

To me, the issue is two-fold. First off, I believe accuracy is important. Having correct data on how a product is doing shapes the hardware world.

The second problem I have is more wide-ranging. If you go and search “AirPod sales” or “AirPods revenue” on Google now, you’ll see a raft of publications writing stories with headlines like “AirPods account for 71% of true wireless headphone revenue,” or “AirPods shift almost 60M units in 2019.”

Now, I’m not saying Stategy Analytics‘ report is incorrect — I don’t have the data or information to back that up — just that it might not be the whole story. It’s also not entirely the firm’s fault that its report produced an attention-grabbing, headline-worthy stat that makes journalists’ jobs easy. Despite this, the report has spread like wildfire.

And the problem with this? Well, the public perception becomes that Apple is doing unbelievably well. And one thing about public perception and proclamations in general is that they very definitely impact stock prices .

A danger here is that Apple investors and stockholders are either: a) being misled on the worth of their investment, or b) making a lot of money off misinformation.

Even if you don’t care about that (which I totally get), the level of AirPods‘ success will be closely monitored by other companies for their own true wireless headphones. If the figures they’re seeing in the public space are horrendously skewed, that could influence the design process and lead to headphones people don’t actually want. There’s an entire knock-on effect.

Now, of course, the figures could be accurate, but that’s not the point here. The industry needs to do a better job at being critical of these stats, because what’s happening at the moment is exactly what Apple wants.

Basically, don’t believe everything you read about AirPod sales.

Foxconn teams up with Nanox to make futuristic X-ray machines

Foxconn announced it has invested in Israel-based startup Nanox , to produce futurist and affordable X-ray machines. Apart from leading a round of $26 million investment, the Taiwanese company will also help with manufacturing these machines.

The X-ray machine, called Nanox.arc, looks quite cool and only weighs around 70 kg. So, it’s very portable as compared to traditional X-ray machines that usually weigh a couple of hundred kilos

Nanox said the idea is to make available where the traditional hospitals or clinics are not available. Apart from X-ray, the device will also support other scans such as CT, mammography, fluoroscopy, and angiogram.

The machine is paired with the company’s proprietary software Nanox.Cloud, that provides end-to-end medical imaging service offering image repository, radiologist matching, online and offline diagnostics review and annotation, connectivity to diagnostic assistive artificial intelligence systems, billing, and reporting.

Ran Poliakine, Founder & CEO of Nanox, talking to TNW on a call, said his aim is to make preventive scanning available to more people by making affordable and portable X-ray machines:

Poliakine said the system uses AI for better diagnosis: Nanox’s in-house AI works on making the best image available to radiologists using 3D reconstruction, and a third-party AI — such as Google’s recent model that catches breast cancer through X-rays — can assist experts making the right diagnosis.

Poliakine added another advantage of this machine is that it can startup and shut down immediately unlike traditional machines.

The company aims to start shipping the product by the first half of 2020. It aims to ship close to 15,000 machines in the next two years. Poliakine said a network of over 15,000 machines will also boost medical research with over 300,000 images being collected daily. He said currently, research on medical AI suffers from the lack of data, that’s where Nanox can step in and provide ample data.

Apple reportedly acquires Xnor.ai to boost on-device AI

Did you know that, according to CEO Tim Cook, Apple acquires a company every two to three weeks?  It’s just added another startup to its long line of AI acquisitions. According to a report by GeekWire , the Cupertino-based company has made a deal with Xnor.ai , an edge-based AI startup, for $200 million.

What is edge-based AI, you may ask? It’s a type of AI that executes algorithms locally (meaning on the hardware it’s being used for), instead of relying on the cloud.

Xnor.ai specializes in image recognition software that can even run on low-powered devices. We know that iPhones aren’t low-powered by any means, but this startup can help make the on-device processing mode efficient. Plus, it can help Apple leverage machine learning in future devices that might have comparatively less processing power than a top-of-the-line phone (Apple Glasses, anyone?).

Ali Farhadi, the co-founder of the company, told GeekWire in an interview last year the company has a self-service platform for developers who aren’t accustomed to coding for AI; it uses drag-and-drop modules and libraries that can run on practically any device:

According to a report by CBInsights published last year, Apple led the AI acquisition race in 2019, having snapped up more than 20 startups in the field.

Some notable AI purchases from Apple over the years include Novauris Technologies (developer of Siri), the music recognition app Shazam , self-driving tech company Drive.ai, and Spectral Edge — a startup that helps improve image quality on smartphones.

We’ve reached out to Apple for more details on the acquisition, and we’ll update the story once we hear back.