The hearables market goes back to the first Bluetooth headsets which were launched in 2001, followed by wireless stereo headphones, which arrived a few years later. Neither made great waves in the market – headsets were associated with cabbies rather than celebrities and Bluetooth stereo headphones took almost a decade to attain any market share. In 2013, that started to change. Major brands were taken by surprise as consumers started to purchase wireless headphones. The most credible reason I’ve heard for the change is that it was driven by the growth of mobile video on larger handsets, with users preferring to dispense with the annoyance of cables when holding the phone screen horizontally. That’s supported by research from Parks Associates showing the average US smartphone user stream music or video for 90 minutes each day. Whatever the reason for the sudden popularity, there is no question that they are now fashionable.
From the article "The Market For Hearable Devices 2016-2020 – And Then There Were Airpods…" by Nick Hunn.
According to research firm Parks Associates, smartphone owners spend more time per day listening to music on their device compared to other major entertainment activities, and 68% of smartphone owners...
Netflix is by far the biggest online streaming video service. Last week, researcher Parks Associates estimated that about half of all U.S. households with a broadband Internet connection subscribed to...
The same can’t be said of high-definition audio -- it isn’t yet "a thing." But can it become a thing? Two years after Neil Young unveiled his hi-def iPod, the Pono, on the keynote stage of Austin's Co...
According to a new Parks Associates study, digital media usage varies based on OS brand and carrier. iPhone users consume more media than Android and other operating systems. T-Mobile and Sprint custo...
