Friday will take place in the United States and Canada as well (increasingly) as Black Friday, a very consumerist tradition where millions of people rush to stores to buy all sorts of things. Many popular items are on sale right now. When it comes to technology, the gadget that should be the most sought after is likely to be… a wireless headset. Why ?
In an uncertain economic climate, it’s not just the tech giants who are tightening their belts. Consumers are also reducing their spending on electronics and computers. Personal computer sales are expected to decline before the end of the year; sales of video game consoles have slowed; phones are selling less well…
In short, in techno, things are going badly. Everywhere ? Almost. Because we are still predicting good growth in sales… of headphones. Especially the cordless models. The studies that focus on this specific subject are thin, but they all report an annual growth of between 20 and 30% per year.
The most popular brands are Apple, Bose, Sennheiser and Sony. All of these brands have refreshed their catalogs in anticipation of the holidays. Interesting detail: Apple is the only one in the lot to have its own on-demand music service. When will high-end headphones from Spotify, capable of competing with the AirPods Max? This would allow the Swedish service to broaden its experience, as Apple Music does with its “spatial audio” format exclusive to its AirPods…
There must be something reassuring, comfortable for the average human being in controlling their sound environment, even in the middle of a crowd. It’s universal. This applies to the United States as well as Europe or Quebec.
This format creates the illusion of being in front of the artist performing their song live. It’s not for everyone. In fact, it’s probably one more clue that Apple is preparing something on the augmented reality side, where spatial sound makes immersion even more realistic.
Cultural phenomenon?
The popularity of consumer headphones has always been closely linked to that of music listening. The history of “modern” headphones can be traced back to Thomas Edison in 1910. It’s fascinating. Above all, it proves that the success of this technology is more than a consumer phenomenon. It’s a cultural thing.
There must be something reassuring, comfortable for the average human being in controlling their sound environment, even in the middle of a crowd. It’s universal. This applies to the United States as well as Europe or Quebec.
We can’t say that Quebecers don’t listen to music. Here as elsewhere, sales of headphones have exploded in recent years. We can even go so far as to speak of a craze that goes beyond normal (and the only fairly recent popularity of teleworking). On the online pre-sale platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo, a large part of the projects presented in recent years by Quebec entrepreneurs who have had success beyond expectations have been headsets.
The young Montreal startup Eno proves it eloquently: its Enophone headset has sold a few thousand copies since the summer despite its very targeted usefulness: it helps to concentrate when working in front of a personal computer. In Quebec, the company that sells Sounds Good headphones has had an extremely busy holiday season in 2021. It does not plan any special promotions this year, as its leaders prepare an offensive in the United States, but it still expects fairly sustained sales this year again.
An opportunity to seize?
In short, headphones sell. And this year, it is the youngest buyers who are likely to be the most targeted by their manufacturers. According to experts, if headsets continue to sell well in the coming months, it will be largely thanks to this clientele. For young people, the appeal of withdrawing into a sound bubble to listen to their own music is just as important, if not more, than simply hearing better the sound coming from a video game or being able to make calls hands-free.
One wonders whether the Quebec music industry is doing everything it needs to take advantage of a context that should benefit it as much as the foreign music industry. Maybe not. The Observatoire de la culture et des communications published data last week indicating that only 4 of the 100 most listened to songs in Quebec, on music platforms, were Quebec creations.
We can deplore the poor promotion of Quebec music by these online platforms. We can deplore that Quebecers are not sufficiently interested in what artists produce here. But there’s no denying the popularity of music listening, here as elsewhere. Preferably with good headphones on.