After AirPods, fast charging and VR/AR may become Apple's new sideline

The iPhone may have to remove another port.

Recently, there have been reports that although the iPhone 13 will still retain the Lightning interface, Apple may further cancel the iPhone charging interface in the future, making it an interface-free smartphone.

If the iPhone cancels the charging port, the MaSafe magnetic wireless charger will become a rigid demand for iPhone users. Jiwei Consulting analysts believe that the MaSafe magnetic wireless charger will become Apple's new sideline business after Air Pods, generating huge output value and bringing rich profit margins.

Apple ignites wireless headphone market by removing headphone jack

The last time Apple removed a port from the iPhone was in 2016.

This year, Apple encountered difficulties. After nearly 10 years of rapid growth, the iPhone’s growth was sluggish, and in fiscal 2016, Apple’s annual revenue declined for the first time in nearly 15 years.

In order to alleviate the downward trend, Apple turned its attention to earphones, removed the headphone jack on the iPhone 7, upgraded the wireless earphones (TWS), and launched AirPods.

Starting from iPhone 7, new iPhone models do not have headphone jacks, so iPhone users have to buy AirPods, making AirPods gradually become the standard for iPhone users. It is understood that in the past four or five years, AirPods sales have increased from 15 million pairs in 2017 to about 85 million pairs in 2020, generating about $15 billion in revenue, becoming Apple's fastest growing business.

The AirPods market still has huge room for growth. An industry insider pointed out that the number of iPhone users worldwide exceeds 1 billion, and the cumulative sales of AirPods are less than 200 million pairs. Apple is actively upgrading AirPods and may launch the AirPods operating system - SiriOS, to further tap the market potential of AirPods.

AirPods are popular all over the world, giving birth to the TWS industry and promoting the vigorous development of the Android TWS industry. After Apple released AirPods, various manufacturers flocked to the TWS market. Android phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo will not miss the TWS market opportunity. Traditional audio equipment manufacturers such as BOSE, Sennheiser, and Edifier are actively following up. Even Internet companies are involved in the TWS market, making TWS popular and pushing the TWS market to new heights. TrendForce said that in 2020, the overall market shipments of TWS headphones reached 200 million sets, and it is estimated that the TWS headphone market will maintain a growth trend in 2021, with an annual growth rate of 24%.

No charger included, fast charging will become Apple's new sideline

In 2020, Apple officially welcomed the 5G era and released the iPhone 12 series, all of which support 5G. It is understood that 5G has the advantages of high speed, high reliability, low mobility and low latency, but 5G smartphones have high power consumption, which poses a greater challenge to the battery life of mobile phones.

At present, battery technology cannot alleviate the battery life problem of 5G smartphones, and all mobile phone manufacturers will pin their hopes on wired fast charging or wireless charging technology. In recent years, mobile phone manufacturers have started a wired fast charging or wireless fast charging technology research and development competition, and almost every press conference has become an upgrade or competition of wired fast charging or wireless fast charging technology.

In 2020, Apple also joined the battle of wired fast charging or wireless fast charging, increasing the power of the iPhone 12 charger to 20W, and for the first time released the MaSafe magnetic wireless charger that supports 15W power. However, Apple announced that in order to reduce more carbon emissions, from October 2020, all iPhones on sale will no longer include Lightning connectors and chargers. This means that the iPhone will no longer come with a wired charger as standard, and iPhone users will need to purchase a wired charger or wireless charger separately.

Analysts from Jiwei Consulting pointed out that the iPhone no longer comes with a charger as standard, which means that the charger is regarded as a business, implying two possible stages: the first stage focuses on wired fast charging. In 2021, Apple may launch a variety of wired fast charging chargers to attract consumers to buy fast charging chargers, making fast charging chargers a necessity for iPhone users; the second stage focuses on wireless fast charging. Apple may aggressively cancel the charging port and completely abandon the wired fast charging market, making wireless fast charging chargers a standard feature of the iPhone and gaining greater profits. By then, the iPhone will fully enter the era of wireless fast charging.

However, Apple will not remove the charging port in the short term. On the one hand, Apple has just announced that it will not include a charger as standard, and there is still a huge market space for wired fast charging in the next two to three years; on the other hand, after removing the charging port, it still needs to solve problems such as the connection between different iPhones and between iPhones and computers, which also takes time to improve.

Developing VR/AR technology, what are Apple’s new accessories?

The next iPhone accessory may be VR/AR glasses.

VR/AR glasses are considered to be the next generation of interactive devices after mobile phones, and have a huge market space. According to a research report by a brokerage firm, global VR/AR headset shipments are expected to maintain strong growth at a compound annual growth rate of 66.7% between 2019 and 2023, reaching 68.6 million units in 2023.

In recent years, global technology giants such as Apple, Facebook, Sony, and HTC have all entered the VR/AR market. Apple has not only acquired VR/AR industry chain companies such as Shazam, Spaces, NextVR, Spektral, Camerai, and Finisar, but is also actively developing VR/AR technologies, releasing ARKit, Face ID, AR Quick Look, Reality Converter, AR rendering platform RealityKit, 3D modeling tool Reality Composer, LiDAR, etc. IDC predicts that Apple's plan to launch AR glasses in 2021 or 2022 is already on the agenda.

Industry insiders pointed out that if Apple releases VR/AR glasses in the next two years, it may release two products, one is a VR/AR all-in-one machine, and the other is VR/AR glasses used with iPhone. In particular, the latter VR/AR glasses as iPhone accessories can lower the consumption threshold, which is conducive to the popularization of fast charging of VR/AR glasses and detonate the VR/AR market.

Currently, Apple focuses on the iPhone, but the global smartphone market continues to decline and the iPhone's growth is weak. Apple is actively creating new growth points for the iPhone. After the headphone jack was removed, AirPods, as an iPhone accessory, ignited the wireless headset market and brought huge profits to Apple. Similarly, after the charger is no longer included as standard, fast charging will become Apple's second sideline business, bringing new growth space for Apple. VR/AR glasses will not only become iPhone accessories, but also have the opportunity to become Apple's new interactive platform, allowing Apple to lead the next decade. Apple's accessory sideline business is a big business.