Wireless Earbuds Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Alex Rivera, Consumer Tech | Last updated: September 23, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Global true wireless (TWS) earbud shipments fell 0.7% to 82.1 million units in 2Q26, per Omdia, the first year-over-year decline since 2Q23. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that open-ear models replaced two out of every three conventional earbuds the market lost in that quarter, an Open-Ear Replacement Ratio (OERR) of 66.7%.
Quick Answer
About 82.1 million pairs of wireless earbuds shipped worldwide in the second quarter of 2026, down 0.7% year over year, according to Omdia. Apple leads with 20.5% share (16.8 million units). Open-ear earbuds (OWS) grew 12% to 11.1 million units and now make up 13.5% of all TWS shipments. Axis Intelligence Research puts the Open-Ear Replacement Ratio at 66.7% for 2Q26.
Key Findings
- Global TWS shipments reached 82.1 million units in 2Q26, down 0.7% year over year, according to Omdia’s September 2026 data.
- Axis Intelligence Research calculates an Open-Ear Replacement Ratio (OERR) of 66.7% for 2Q26: open-ear gained 1.2 million units while conventional earbuds lost 1.8 million.
- Apple shipped 16.8 million TWS units in 2Q26 for 20.5% share, which Axis Intelligence Research finds is 1.97 times the share of second-place Xiaomi (10.4%).
- Axis Intelligence Research finds Omdia’s 2026 open-ear forecast rose 9.75% in nine months, from 40 million units (December 2025) to 43.9 million units (September 2026).
- The WHO estimates that more than 1 billion people aged 12–35 are at risk of hearing loss from recreational exposure to loud sound, including personal audio devices.
How Many Wireless Earbuds Are Sold Each Year?
Analysts do not count retail sales. They count sell-in shipments: units vendors ship into distribution channels. Every quarterly total on this page uses that definition.
The most recent quarterly readings:
| Quarter | Global TWS shipments | YoY change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Q25 | 78.3M | +18% | Canalys (now part of Omdia) |
| 3Q25 | 92.6M | +0.3% | Omdia, Dec 2025 |
| 2Q26 | 82.1M | −0.7% | Omdia, Sep 2026 |
In 1Q25, Canalys (now part of Omdia) called the market’s 18% jump its highest growth rate since 2021. Eighteen months later the headline is almost flat. Omdia attributes most of the 2Q26 decline to mainland China, where shipments fell 9.5% as consumer-electronics subsidies faded and replacement demand was partly pulled forward into 2025. Shipments also fell in the US and India.
Is the wireless earbuds market growing or shrinking in 2026?
It depends which earbuds you count. The total is flat; underneath it, two different markets are moving in opposite directions. Conventional in-ear and semi-in-ear TWS shipments fell 2% in 2Q26, per Omdia. Open-ear (OWS) grew 12%.
Alex Rivera, Consumer Tech: A flat total usually means a replacement market. Most people buying earbuds in 2026 already own a pair, so the purchase question has moved from “should I get wireless earbuds” to “what should my next pair do that my current pair doesn’t.” That’s where open-ear designs and health features are catching buyers, and where a plain refresh of the same stem-and-tip design isn’t.
Who Has the Largest Wireless Earbuds Market Share?
Apple, including Beats, has led every quarter in the data we collected. In 2Q26:
| Rank | Vendor | 2Q26 shipments | 2Q26 share | 2Q25 share | YoY growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apple | 16.8M | 20.5% | 20.1% | +1.2% | Omdia |
| 2 | Xiaomi (incl. Redmi) | 8.6M | 10.4% | 10.7% | −3.1% | Omdia |
| 3 | Samsung | 5.5M | 6.7% | 6.8% | −2.9% | Omdia |
| 4 | Huawei | 5.1M | 6.2% | 6.9% | −10.6% | Omdia |
| 5 | OPPO (incl. OnePlus) | 4.1M | 5.0% | 4.3% | +14.9% | Omdia |
| — | Others | 42.0M | 51.2% | 51.2% | −0.7% | Omdia |
| Total | 82.1M | 100% | 100% | −0.7% | Omdia |
Source for all rows: Omdia Connected Life Horizon Service (smart personal audio sell-in shipments), September 2026, via Omdia’s press release.
Apple AirPods market share: volume vs value
Apple’s unit share is about one in five. Its value share is far larger. Omdia reported in December 2025 that Apple captured “around half of all TWS market value” in 3Q25, on a 20% unit share. Axis Intelligence Research estimates this means Apple’s value share runs about 2.5 times its volume share (≈50% ÷ 20%). Because Omdia gave the value share as an approximation, treat the multiple as an estimate.
That gap is the whole business model. Apple sells about one pair in five and collects about half the money.
Apple does not disclose AirPods revenue on its own. Its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026 reports Wearables, Home and Accessories net sales of $7,883 million, up from $7,404 million a year earlier. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that as +6.5% growth. The line includes Apple Watch, AirPods, home products and accessories; no AirPods-only figure is published.
Which brands are growing fastest?
In 2Q26, OPPO (+14.9%) was the only top-five vendor growing faster than Apple. Huawei dropped 10.6%, the steepest decline among the top five. That tracks Omdia’s finding that China, Huawei’s home market, drove most of the quarter’s contraction.
The picture was different a year earlier. In 1Q25, Canalys (now part of Omdia) recorded Xiaomi up 63% and Huawei up 40%. Emerging-market expansion carried both brands then. By 2Q26, Xiaomi had slipped 3.1%.
Top 5 concentration
Axis Intelligence Research finds the top five vendors held 48.8% of 2Q26 shipments (100% minus the 51.2% “Others” share), down from 52.8% in 1Q25. Note that the top-five lineup changed between the two quarters (boAt in 1Q25, OPPO in 2Q26), so this compares “whoever the top five were” at each point.
Alex Rivera, Consumer Tech: More than half the market sits in the long tail. That tail is mostly sub-$50 earbuds sold through marketplaces, and it’s the reason ANC stopped being a premium feature. Omdia’s analyst Jack Leathem described ANC being democratized at sub-US$25 price points. When the cheap tier gets noise cancellation, a flagship has to sell something the cheap tier can’t copy easily: ecosystem, health sensing, hearing features.
What Are Open-Ear Earbuds and How Fast Are They Growing?
Open wireless stereo (OWS) earbuds sit outside the ear canal: clip-on “ear cuff” designs and ear-hook designs. Omdia counts OWS inside the TWS total and separates it from conventional TWS (in-ear and semi-in-ear).
| Metric | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| OWS shipments | 11.1M | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| OWS YoY growth | +12% | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| OWS share of all TWS | 13.5% (from 12.0%) | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| Clip-on share of OWS | 61% | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| Ear-hook share of OWS | 39% | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| OWS under $50: YoY growth | +323% | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| OWS $100–$199: YoY growth | +253% | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| OWS shipments | 10.3M (+69%) | 3Q25 | Omdia |
| OWS forecast | 43.9M | 2026 | Omdia |
| OWS forecast | 90.5M | 2030 | Omdia |
Open-ear earbuds market share by brand
| Vendor | 2Q26 shipments | 2Q26 share | YoY growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shokz | 1.1M | 10.3% | +107.9% |
| Sanag | 0.8M | 7.6% | +2.4% |
| Huawei | 0.8M | 7.0% | −4.1% |
| Baseus | 0.7M | 6.6% | +29.9% |
| Edifier | 0.6M | 5.4% | +0.2% |
| Others | 7.0M | 63.2% | +6.8% |
Source: Omdia, September 2026.
Shokz, known for bone-conduction sports headphones, doubled its open-ear volume and took the OWS lead. In 3Q25 it wasn’t in Omdia’s OWS top five at all; Huawei led that quarter. Rankings in a category this young and this fragmented can change in a single quarter: “Others” still holds 63.2% of OWS.
The Axis Open-Ear Replacement Ratio (OERR)
Growth rates alone don’t say whether open-ear is replacing conventional earbuds or just being added on top. Axis Intelligence Research built a metric for that.
OERR (Open-Ear Replacement Ratio) = open-ear units gained year over year ÷ conventional TWS units lost year over year × 100.
Conventional TWS is derived by subtracting OWS from Omdia’s TWS total.
| Input | 2Q26 | 2Q25 | 3Q25 | 3Q24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total TWS (Omdia) | 82.1M | 82.7M | 92.6M | 92.3M |
| OWS (Omdia) | 11.1M | 9.9M | 10.3M | 6.1M |
| Conventional TWS (Axis calculation) | 71.0M | 72.8M | 82.3M | 86.2M |
| Reading | OWS gain | Conventional loss | OERR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3Q25 | +4.2M | −3.9M | 107.7% |
| 2Q26 | +1.2M | −1.8M | 66.7% |
How to read it. Above 100%, open-ear gained more units than conventional earbuds lost: the category was growing the total market. Below 100%, open-ear only partly offset the conventional decline, so the total shrank. In 3Q25 open-ear more than covered the gap (the total rose 0.3%). In 2Q26 it covered two-thirds (the total fell 0.7%).
These are the two baseline readings of the index. OERR only makes sense when conventional TWS is declining; in a quarter where conventional grows, Axis will report the OWS–conventional growth gap instead. That gap was 73 percentage points in 3Q25 (+69% vs −4%) and 14 points in 2Q26 (+12% vs −2%).
Alex Rivera, Consumer Tech: The shrinking growth gap is the number I’d watch. Open-ear went from +69% to +12% in three quarters. That’s what happens when a category stops being novel and starts being a normal choice on the shelf. The upside for open-ear now depends on use cases (running, office, all-day wear) more than on curiosity.
Is Omdia getting more or less bullish on open-ear?
More. In December 2025, Omdia forecast OWS shipments of 40 million for 2026. In September 2026 it forecast 43.9 million. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that as a 9.75% upward revision in nine months. Omdia’s 2030 forecast of 90.5 million implies about 19.8% compound annual growth from 2026 to 2030 (Axis calculation: (90.5 ÷ 43.9)^(1/4) − 1).
Wireless Earbuds Market by Region
Omdia and Canalys publish regional direction, not full regional tables, in their public releases. What they disclose:
| Region | Signal | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mainland China | Shipments −9.5% YoY; world’s largest TWS market | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| United States | Shipments declined YoY | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| India | Shipments declined YoY | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| Emerging markets | Growth partially offset declines | 2Q26 | Omdia |
| North America | Apple held over 50% share | 1Q25 | Canalys (now part of Omdia) |
| United States | Double-digit YoY growth, driven by pre-tariff inventory buildup | 1Q25 | Canalys (now part of Omdia) |
| Latin America | Xiaomi posted triple-digit growth | 3Q25 | Omdia |
The US pattern is worth reading as one story. Canalys attributed the 1Q25 double-digit jump largely to vendors stocking up ahead of tariffs. Shipments counted early in 2025 weren’t available to count later, and by 2Q26 US shipments were down year over year.
Wireless Earbuds and Hearing Health Statistics
Earbuds are the most-used personal audio device, so hearing-health data is part of the earbuds story.
| Statistic | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Young people (12–35) at risk of hearing loss from recreational loud sound | More than 1 billion | WHO, Make Listening Safe |
| People projected to have some hearing loss by 2050 | Nearly 2.5 billion | WHO fact sheet, March 2026 |
| People needing rehabilitation for disabling hearing loss today | 430 million | WHO fact sheet |
| Annual global cost of unaddressed hearing loss | Almost US$1 trillion | WHO fact sheet |
| Return per dollar invested in ear and hearing care (10 years) | Nearly US$16 | WHO fact sheet |
The WHO’s figure covers all recreational exposure (personal audio devices, entertainment venues and games), not earbuds alone. No public source isolates earbuds-only risk.
Earbuds are becoming hearing devices
Hearing features have moved into mainstream earbuds. According to Apple’s AirPods comparison page, the Hearing Aid feature on AirPods Pro 2 and later “has received FDA authorization” and is intended for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. The Hearing Protection feature is not suitable for sustained sounds louder than 110 dBA. Omdia also noted that AirPods Pro 3 added heart-rate sensing.
Alex Rivera, Consumer Tech: This is where the premium tier found its moat. A sub-$25 pair can get ANC now. It can’t get regulatory authorization as a hearing aid. When the flagship’s feature list reads more like a health device than a music player, the value-share gap in the Omdia data starts to make sense.
What Comes Next for the Earbuds Market?
Three signals from primary sources:
- AI features. Omdia research director Jason Low said AI-driven features, from on-bud neural processing units (NPUs) to companion apps powered by large language models, are becoming a key area of differentiation in premium audio. Apple’s comparison page lists Live Translation across AirPods 4 and later models.
- Open-ear use cases. Omdia expects OWS to reach 90.5 million units by 2030, nearly one in five TWS shipments, and says vendors need to target fitness, commuting and office use.
- A replacement cycle, not an adoption cycle. With China’s subsidy-driven demand pulled into 2025, 2026 volume depends on upgrades. That favors vendors with a reason to upgrade.
Methodology
Collection. Axis Intelligence Research collected every figure on this page from primary documents fetched on September 23, 2026: Omdia and Canalys (now part of Omdia) press releases with vendor tables, Apple’s Form 10-Q filed with the SEC, two WHO pages, and Apple’s product comparison page. Every number appears as a row in the downloadable CSV with its source URL and retrieval date.
Definitions. “TWS” follows Omdia: true wireless stereo devices, including both conventional (in-ear, semi-in-ear) and open-ear (OWS) designs. Shipments are sell-in (vendor to channel), not consumer sales. Apple includes Beats; Samsung includes Harman subsidiaries (Canalys 1Q25 note); Xiaomi includes Redmi and OPPO includes OnePlus (Omdia 2Q26 note).
Axis-calculated figures (flagged axis_calculated = yes in the CSV):
- Conventional TWS = Total TWS − OWS.
- OERR = (OWS units this year − OWS units last year) ÷ (conventional units last year − conventional units this year) × 100. Computed only when conventional units declined.
- OWS growth gap = OWS YoY growth − conventional TWS YoY growth (percentage points).
- Apple-to-Xiaomi share multiple = 20.5 ÷ 10.4.
- Top-5 share = 100 − “Others” share.
- Forecast revision = (43.9 − 40) ÷ 40 × 100.
- OWS 2026–2030 CAGR = (90.5 ÷ 43.9)^(1/4) − 1.
- Apple value-to-volume multiple ≈ 50 ÷ 20 (estimate; Omdia’s value figure is “around half”).
- Apple Wearables, Home and Accessories growth = 7,883 ÷ 7,404 − 1.
Comparability. Omdia unit figures are published to one decimal place, so derived gains and losses (1.2M, 1.8M) carry rounding of up to ±0.1M per input; OERR readings should be quoted to the nearest few points. Canalys 1Q25 data came from the Canalys Smart Personal Audio Analysis before the Omdia integration; Omdia’s 2Q26 data comes from the Connected Life Horizon Service. We place them in the same timeline but do not compute cross-service growth rates. Apple reports revenue on a fiscal calendar (quarter ended June 27, 2026); Omdia uses calendar quarters.
About This Dataset
Contents. 182 rows covering global TWS and OWS shipments, vendor market shares and growth for 1Q24–2Q26, OWS forecasts to 2030, Apple Wearables, Home and Accessories net sales, WHO hearing-health figures, and Axis Intelligence Research’s calculated metrics including the OERR.
Format. UTF-8 CSV, long format, one observation per row. Columns: metric, value, unit, as_of_date, geography, segment, vendor, source_org, source_document, source_url, retrieved_date, is_primary, axis_calculated, method_note.
License. CC BY 4.0. You may reuse, remix and republish with attribution to Axis Intelligence Research.
How to Cite This Page
APA Axis Intelligence Research. (2026, September 23). Wireless earbuds statistics 2026: Shipments, market share and the open-ear shift. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/wireless-earbuds-statistics/
MLA Axis Intelligence Research. “Wireless Earbuds Statistics 2026: Shipments, Market Share and the Open-Ear Shift.” Axis Intelligence, 23 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/wireless-earbuds-statistics/.
Chicago Axis Intelligence Research. “Wireless Earbuds Statistics 2026: Shipments, Market Share and the Open-Ear Shift.” Axis Intelligence, September 23, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/wireless-earbuds-statistics/.
Wireless Earbuds FAQ
Why did wireless earbud shipments fall in 2026?
Omdia attributes the 2Q26 decline (−0.7% to 82.1 million units) mainly to mainland China, where shipments fell 9.5% after consumer-electronics subsidies faded and replacement purchases were pulled forward into 2025. The US and India also declined.
Does Apple still sell the most wireless earbuds?
Yes. Apple shipped 16.8 million TWS units in 2Q26 for 20.5% global share, per Omdia, nearly twice second-place Xiaomi’s 10.4%. In 3Q25, Omdia said Apple captured around half of all TWS market value.
How much of Apple’s revenue comes from AirPods?
Apple doesn’t break it out. AirPods sit inside Wearables, Home and Accessories, which brought in $7,883 million in the quarter ended June 27, 2026, up 6.5% year over year, according to Apple’s 10-Q.
Are open-ear earbuds replacing regular earbuds?
Partly. Axis Intelligence Research’s Open-Ear Replacement Ratio was 66.7% in 2Q26: open-ear earbuds gained 1.2 million units while conventional earbuds lost 1.8 million. In 3Q25 the ratio was 107.7%, meaning open-ear gains exceeded conventional losses.
What share of earbuds are open-ear?
Open-ear (OWS) models made up 13.5% of global TWS shipments in 2Q26, up from 12.0% a year earlier, per Omdia. Omdia forecasts OWS will reach nearly one in five TWS shipments by 2030.
Which brand leads open-ear earbuds?
Shokz, with 1.1 million units and 10.3% of OWS shipments in 2Q26, per Omdia. Its volume grew 107.9% year over year. Sanag, Huawei, Baseus and Edifier round out the top five.
Can earbuds damage your hearing?
Loud listening can. The WHO says more than 1 billion people aged 12–35 are at risk of hearing loss from recreational exposure to loud sound, including personal audio devices. WHO and ITU publish a global standard for safe listening devices.
Can AirPods work as hearing aids?
Apple says the Hearing Aid feature on AirPods Pro 2 and later has received FDA authorization for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. It requires compatible devices and the latest firmware.
Are cheap earbuds catching up with premium ones?
On features, partly: Omdia’s analyst described ANC being democratized at sub-US$25 price points. On value, no: Apple’s roughly 20% unit share earned around half of TWS market value in 3Q25.
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