Wireless Wearable Devices Continue To Be Hot

Recently, wireless headphones continue to be popular, attracting many investors' attention to TWS headphones.

The advent of Apple Airpods has brought headphone competition to the "wireless" track. As more and more mainstream mobile phone manufacturers in China cancel the 3.5mm headphone jack, TWS (True Wireless Stereo, or True Wireless Stereo) headphone ushers in the peak market increase.

According to market research agency Statista's forecast, the global TWS headset shipments will be 78 million units this year and will exceed 100 million units next year; GFK predicts that the TWS headset market size will reach 76 billion yuan next year.

Some people believe that the current penetration rate of TWS headsets in the smartphone market is not high, especially in the Android system. According to the assumption that global smartphone shipments are about 1.5 billion units, penetration rate is 50%, and customer unit price is 200 yuan, TWS worldwide The potential market size is 150 billion yuan. This also attracted lithium battery manufacturers to raise this track. According to public data, at present, the unit price of TWS headset batteries in the high-end market is 10-20 yuan / piece, the middle-end market is 5-10 yuan / piece, and the low-end (cottage) market is less than 5 yuan / piece. The value is 8-15 yuan, which means that the TWS lithium battery market space in 2020 is at least 2.4-4.5 billion yuan.

Lithium batteries for TWS earphones are mainly divided into earphone batteries and charging compartment batteries. From the perspective of form, full-in-ear headphones are dominated by bean batteries; half-in-ear headphones are mainly pin batteries and polymer soft-pack batteries; and charging battery cells are mainly polymer soft-pack square batteries.

Based on the better market demand of the terminal, the market penetration rate of TWS headsets is constantly increasing. From the perspective of the TWS headphone supply chain manufacturers, the battery companies that entered the market include LG, VARTA, ATL, Everlite Lithium, Guoguang Electronics, Victory, Smart Key Technology, Penghui Energy, Meni, and so on. According to Counterpoint, in 2018 and the first half of 2019, sales were approximately 0.46 million and 45 million pairs. With the high growth of TWS headsets, global battery supplier Varta's revenue this year is also accelerating quarterly. At present, new products from various manufacturers are solving the problems of short battery life, sound delay, and poor sound quality. At the same time, TWS headsets can implement more intelligent functions, and sales are expected to continue to grow rapidly.

Liwei, a lithium battery company, said that the company had independently developed core equipment and products for small cylindrical hard-shell batteries (bean-type) 5 years ago, and had a number of invention patents. At present, the energy density of the main product exceeds 120wh / kg, which is comparable to overseas leaders and cuts into the supply chain of mainstream overseas TWS headset manufacturers. It is expected that new customers will continue to be developed. Due to the higher production barriers and patent issues of this product, it is expected to have a strong profit return.

Penghui Energy said that with the rapid upgrading of products in the consumer market, the accelerated penetration of lithium batteries under the trend of cordlessness, the company's multi-scenarios of lithium batteries, and full bloom in many application areas. TWS (Bluetooth headset) quickly penetrated, the company's button battery has entered the relevant industry chain, high profit margins improve profitability.

TWS lithium batteries correspond to high-end smart electronic consumer products. Domestic TWS headphones have obvious cost-effective advantages compared to foreign brands, and their market share is also rising.

For lithium battery companies, it is important to keep abreast of market trends, meet customer needs, continuously optimize product performance, and reduce costs in order to gain a share in the market.

After the TWS headset, the smart watch may relay the wireless headset to become the focus of the next market. From 2017 to 2018, global smart watch shipments, Apple Watch continued to occupy the top spot, with market share of 43% and 37% in 2017-2018 The second place was BBK's little genius, with market shares of 10% and 10%, followed by Samsung watches.

Overall, China's wearable device market shipped 73.21 million units in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 28.5%. The top five vendors in the overall market are Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple, BBK and Qihoo 360. It is expected that by 2023, market shipments will reach 1. 200 million units. By then, the prosperity of the wearable device market will definitely promote the rapid growth of profits of lithium battery manufacturers.