An engineer started a business and created a top 2 in a category!

The most competitive track is also the one with the greatest growth potential.

As a fiercely competitive red ocean market, most people think that the 3C category is crowded, highly competitive, and unprofitable. However, its huge user base and its record of dominating the hot-selling categories on major platforms still attract many sellers to join the market.

Many sellers’ first choice after entering the cross-border e-commerce market is 3C products. A hot-selling product can support sales of millions or even tens of millions a year. Coupled with the small size, light weight, and high unit price, 3C products can easily capture the hearts of a group of sellers.

In the Top 100 of the "China Cross-border E-commerce Brand Influence List" released last year , 3C category sellers accounted for more than 30%. Not only are there old big sellers such as Anker, Aoji, Shokz, but there are also many new forces such as Paimet that have come from behind.

From the layout direction of the big sellers, we can see that although headphones are small, they are one of the fastest growing and highest-selling sub-categories. Domestic players have entered the "mid-waist market" and occupied the market share of headphones below 1,000 yuan. They have also successfully overtaken the mainstream overseas market surrounded by big brands and have become a hot headphone brand.

If new players want to stand out in the 3C category, they undoubtedly need to learn from their predecessors. This article analyzes the 3C earphone market from the perspectives of new forces ( EarFun , Paimet , etc. ) and old brands ( Soundcore , Shokz , Taotronics, etc.), hoping to help new sellers.

Sub-heading 1: Entering the top list of categories, a number of Shenzhen big sellers overtake others

The extremely inward-looking headphone market gives people the first impression that it is "too difficult to quit", but it also often means that there is a large enough market capacity for new sellers to get a piece of the pie.

Data shows that global shipments of TWS headphones will increase from 46 million units in 2018 to 308 million units in 2023, with an average annual compound growth rate of 46.27%. Specifically, in the market priced below US$50, the market share of TWS headphones exceeded 50% for the first time.

On the other hand, involution also means that the speed of track renewal and elimination is faster. Only by focusing on innovation and research and development and moving forward can old brands avoid being overtaken by new brands that are ready to counterattack at any time .

Audio engineer started a business and created a top 2 category

As a newcomer in the headphone industry, EarFun broke through the siege in the face of internal competition. At that time, the overseas audio market was already fiercely competing with international brands such as Sony and domestic brands such as Soundcore in the high-end market, and there were also a number of white-label merchants monopolizing the low-end market. Avoiding the crowded frontier, EarFun found its own habitat in the mid-range market.

In just a few years, EarFun has gained a foothold in Amazon's European market, firmly occupying the second tier of the headphone category, and ranked among the top 2 in the category of Amazon's German site.

During the 2023 Prime Day promotion, EarFun delivered a perfect answer, with sales of approximately US$2 million, a 9-10 times increase over normal days. Among them, one type of earphone performed well, selling more than 20,000 orders. This situation continued during this year's Member Day, and its product sales on the US and European sites increased several times.

Behind EarFun's brilliant achievements is a headphone brand founded by an audio technology engineer in 2018. In its early days, EarFun entered Amazon, focusing on markets such as the United States, Europe, and Japan, and later expanded to multiple sites such as the Middle East, India, and Australia.

Searching for "EarFun" on Amazon , you can see that its products are priced between US$9.99 and US$75.99 , and some products have sold over 300 or even 500 units in the past month .

Some products, such as the two headphones shown below, have sold over 3k+ or even 5k+ products in the past month , with over 4,900 ratings, of which nearly 80% of consumers gave them 5-star reviews, saying that the headphones combine comfort, durability and practicality, and the volume limiting function can well help protect children from excessive noise.

This year, EarFun also plans to expand the headphone market below $50 to reach a wider consumer group. It is not difficult to see from EarFun 's successful footprint that compared with the fiercely competitive US market, the headphone segment in the European market has huge growth potential.

ODM transforms into DTC, it exceeds the crowdfunding target by 9381%

In terms of the time of its establishment, Padmate is not a newcomer in the headphone industry, but from the perspective of the DTC model, it is still a latecomer.

Founded in 2010, Paimet was originally an ODM manufacturer that mainly produced audio products for major domestic and foreign brands. It was also one of the earliest manufacturers to develop Bluetooth headsets. However, with the impact of the 2B industry being hindered and the wave of 2C brands flourishing, Paimet also chose to adapt to the trend and transform into DTC, entering the overseas market through crowdfunding and independent websites.

It is gratifying that Paimet's first overseas launch was a hit. In 2018, Paimet launched its first TWS Bluetooth headset on an overseas crowdfunding platform, which triggered a frenzy of purchases by overseas consumers. In the end, it successfully became famous overseas with an over-the-counterfunding target of 9381%, and accumulated the first wave of seed users.

Later, Paimet launched four hit products on the crowdfunding platform, making it the brand with the highest crowdfunding amount in the audio category, greatly increasing its exposure. According to statistics, Paimet has raised a total of 10 million US dollars on the crowdfunding platform and won the support of more than 300,000 overseas consumers.

Paimeite's frequent achievements have also attracted reports from more than 600 overseas media, driving its brand reputation to soar. In addition, Paimeite is also promoting its products through star players and alliance marketing.

Obviously, crowdfunding, together with the deployment and dissemination of social media, has made a great contribution to the traffic of Paimeite's independent website. At present, its average monthly traffic is about 130,000, with millions of users. Among them, the highest proportion of traffic source of the independent website is social media, accounting for more than 40%; followed by direct traffic and direct search, which indirectly demonstrates Paimeite's brand awareness and influence. Relatively speaking, its performance on Amazon is not as impressive as the independent website.

Similar to EarFun , Paimate did not choose to engage in a price war, but also focused on the blank market of mid-range consumption. The unit price of its products is mostly between US$29.99 and US$89.99, and is even exploring lower prices to develop niche headphone types such as bone conduction and air conduction headphones.

In order to cater to the young groups, Paimet has also differentiated its design. Unlike the flat and homogenous shape of conventional earphone boxes, Paimet incorporates elements such as waves and oriental aesthetics into its earphone charging boxes, launches scroll-type earphone boxes, etc., and has also won the Red Dot Design Award, iF Design Award and other awards.

It reached the top of the category in 2 years and was favored by many investors.

The disruptive and innovative Timekettle was able to successfully break through the double squeeze of old players and newcomers going overseas, thanks to its entry into the headphone sub-category with AI translation technology.

As one of the first members selected for Tencent AI Accelerator, 3C brand Timekettle did not enter the headphone market through conventional routes. Instead, it took the lead in technology and implanted hard-core AI technology into the headphone category, developing AI simultaneous interpretation headphone products.

The world's first simultaneous interpretation headset WT2 that allows people to talk while walking was created by Timekettle. At that time, Timekettle, which had just been established, wanted to enter the overseas market, so it put this product on the crowdfunding platform to test the overseas market's response. The result was continuous praise and it also set the highest crowdfunding record for similar products.

In the second year after the crowdfunding platform was launched, WT2 Plus was officially put into mass production. The massive purchases by core consumers made the brand leap to the top of the Amazon category sales list, and Timekettle also ushered in a huge performance explosion. Later, three products under the brand, including WT2, ranked in the top three of the Amazon US category list, and Timekettle thus firmly established its position as the number one in the Amazon translation headset category.

However, due to the technological factors of its products, Timekettle's pricing is relatively higher than that of many overseas headphone brands, with product prices mostly ranging from US$100 to US$700. However, this has not affected the sales and reviews of its products. The sales of many of its products in the past month have been in the hundreds, or even 1K+ as shown in the figure below.

Many consumers also love it for its convenient translation function and compact design.

Timekettle stands out from a number of headphone brands due to its strong core technology advantages. The brand focuses on HybridComm technology and refines the product's capabilities in voice processing, simultaneous interpretation and artificial intelligence translation.

In order to make the translation more accurate, we have also developed BoostClean vector noise reduction technology to ensure that the sound can be recorded completely and clearly while eliminating related noise and interference. At the same time, we maintain cooperation with the artificial intelligence platform to ensure the quality of translation.

With such a technological research and development background, its products have won numerous awards since 2019, such as the Innovation Award, Design Award, China Red Star Award, etc., and it even appeared in a BBC documentary as a representative of an innovative company.

With the help of AI, the product's technological capabilities are maximized, making the product functional, beautiful, and practical. No wonder Timekettle has captured the hearts of a large number of consumers as soon as it was launched on the market.

In the booming headphone market, the newcomers worth paying attention to are not only EarFun, Padmate, and Timekettle mentioned above , but also the emerging brand Srhythm with deep roots in Australia, which has an annual growth rate of over 400%, and QCY under Shenzhen Dongguan Hele Electronics.

Sub-title 2: Anker and other big-selling gold-making stone manufacturers, headphone products are selling well overseas

In the camp of established headphone brands, many big sellers including Anker Innovations, Lenovo, and Shokz have also frequently achieved impressive results overseas. They have continuously conquered overseas markets, breaking the situation in which Sony and other international brands dominated the market, allowing more domestic headphones to enter the lives of overseas consumers.

Small headphones contribute hundreds of millions of yuan in revenue to Anker Innovations in a year

The gold-making ability of wireless earphones can be seen from their hot sales.

In 2017, 3C brand Anker Innovations launched the wireless headset brand Soundcore , which generated 220 million yuan in revenue that year, with product sales of nearly 1.55 million. From 2018 to 2019, its sales and revenue continued to rise. In terms of sales, they soared to 2.8 million and 3.55 million respectively, contributing hundreds of millions of yuan in revenue to Anker Innovations.

When Aoji was first founded, it rose to prominence with 3C electronic products, namely headphones and power banks. From 2016 to 2018, 3C products contributed more than 60% of the company's revenue. Taotronics, a Bluetooth audio brand under Zebo, also contributed 861 million yuan in revenue in 2020.

It is not difficult to see that headphones are still the golden stone of most sellers. And this impressive achievement is being presented by extremely high shipments. In 2022, the global shipments of smartphones were 139 million units, while the shipments of audio products were far higher than that of mobile phones, reaching 553 million pairs.

Benefiting from the rising market enthusiasm, Anker's headphone products have also been achieving continuous success overseas.

Not only has the search value on major platforms increased significantly, but it has also occupied a considerable share of the global headphone brand market. On Amazon, as long as you search for headphone-related brand terms, you will often see recommendations for Anker Innovations headphone products. Looking at the listings of products other than Anker, many listings have monthly sales of hundreds or thousands of units, and even self-operated brands such as Apple and Sony have monthly sales of thousands or even tens of thousands.

By searching the word " Soundcore ", it can be found that the ratings of Anker Innovations' top products are basically over 10,000, and the sales volume in the past month is mostly over 10K.

Take a pair of headphones for example, which is priced at $48.9, has 819,638 ratings, a score of 4.5, and has sold over 10,000 units in the past month, ranking on the Amazon BSR list. On the list, there is also the second product in the figure below, which has accumulated 14,197 ratings and also sold over 10,000 units in the past month.

Today, as global headphone shipments continue to increase, the beneficiaries are not only Anker Innovations, but also many old domestic brands.

Old Chinese brands of headphones have gone overseas and won many global championships

Far earlier than the establishment time of many new brands, the domestic headphone brand Shokz began to enter the overseas market as early as around 2010. After more than ten years, Shokz has more than 3,000 patented technologies and has successfully conquered a number of overseas consumers.

If you click on any overseas headphone ranking or rating website, you will almost always see Shokz ranked at the top. It is also known in the industry as the Chinese sports headphone brand that has been "ranked number one in the United States for 12 years."

Shokz has achieved such success thanks to its bone conduction headphones that combine sound quality and comfort. They are mainly used in outdoor sports and are favored by athletes and top celebrities. With the dual effects of making good products and developing brands, Shokz has been ranked first in sales for many years and has also achieved outstanding results.

In 2023, Shokz ranked first in global sales of sports headphones and non-in-ear open-ear headphones with sales of 4.35 million units and 5.2 million units respectively .

Another domestic brand that focuses on affordable prices, Baseus, has been actively developing overseas markets as early as 2017, entering multiple sites including Amazon. Currently, many of the brand's products appear on the US and Asia segmented BS list.

With its popular price of $50 to $100, Baseus has attracted a large number of consumers overseas. On TikTok, Baseus sells more than 200 products, with a total cumulative sales of 103,800 units. In April this year, Baseus also completed a round A financing of several hundred million yuan.

Edifier , a long-established domestic headphone brand , is also accelerating its pace of going overseas. Against the backdrop of declining global headphone shipments, Edifier has expanded into Southeast Asia and achieved its goal of increasing monthly sales by RMB 1 million within just half a year of entering Shopee.

This year, Edifier has also comprehensively laid out various forms of open-back headphones, including ear-hook, back-hook, and ear-clip types, with 10 models already on the market. Other data show that Edifier's shipments of TWS headphones alone reached 5.5 million pairs in 2023, and it also ranked in the top ten of the global TWS headphone rankings. At the same time, Edifier is also entering the HIFI and planar headphone fields through acquisitions and equity investments.

TikTok is selling like hot cakes , and earphones are the strongest dark horse in the 3C market

On TikTok , many headphone brands have also performed very well.

For example, Lenovo 's Erazer headset has recently been listed on the TikTok shop's US best-selling list. It is understood that this headset adopts an open design and has an IPX5 waterproof rating, which greatly facilitates consumers' use.

Compared with other headphones, the box of this headset has a great highlight. Not only can you control music through the box, but you can also take pictures of the scenes around you like a mobile phone, and these photos will be directly stored in the mobile phone album via Bluetooth.

Since the end of July, the sales of this product have been rising. The lowest price in the past month was 186.54 yuan, and the average selling price was 214.43 yuan. Compared with a number of overseas headphone brands, the price of this headphone is not low, but it still sells at a high price and has high sales volume.

Data shows that this product was launched on June 18 this year, and has sold 66,300 orders since its launch, with the highest single-day sales of 7,300 orders. In the past week, it has sold 4.9176 million yuan in sales, of which short videos of influencers accounted for the largest proportion of sales, up to 4.5883 million yuan.

Blogger @bd2hotbuys became the strongest promoter of this product. With real-life appearances, videos comparing the shortcomings of Bluetooth and demonstrating how to use headphones, he once sold more than 20,000 products in three days. It is obvious that only marketing combined with high-quality products can boost the sales of a brand.

In addition to the well-known brands mentioned above, there are also many headphones that have performed extremely well on TikTok .

The VANOTOM wireless headphones sold in AGICEA store are priced at US$6.9. They have functions such as noise reduction and foldability, so they are very popular among consumers. They once achieved an average daily sales of more than 5,500 orders for three consecutive days, and topped the TikTok US best-selling list.

Also on the list is a pair of Transformers Bluetooth over-ear headphones, which sold a total of 20,000 units in just one month on the shelves.

It is not difficult to see that the current market for TWS headphones is positive. Research institutions also have the same optimistic prediction, believing that Chinese headphone brands are vigorously deploying emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and India. Relatively speaking, these markets are not monopolized by individual brands, and the acceptance of TWS is relatively high.

Data shows that the combined market share of the world's top five headphone brands is only 50%, with Apple still accounting for the majority. The market share of most brands does not exceed 10%. It can be seen that even though the TWS headphone market is a red ocean at this stage, there are still potential opportunities.

However, as the TWS industry chain matures, the entry threshold for sellers has gradually lowered, exacerbating the mixed situation in the industry. Even a small factory only needs one mold to OEM many headphone products, but such products often have problems such as unstable sound and signal delay. Therefore, when sellers enter this market, they need to adhere to the bottom line of quality to avoid being eliminated by the market.

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Shenzhen big seller