KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo states the AirPods are "the most important accessory in Apple's wireless ecosystem," before predicting the earbuds will be a big seller come next year.
According to note from the analyst obtained by MacRumors, AirPods shipments will double in 2018-- from 13-14 million in 2017 to 26-28 million units. The analyst believes AirPod demand is "strong" and, thanks to improved assembly and increased capacity from manufacturer Luxshare, shipping has been reduced to 1-3 days.
Previously the Airpods were manufactured by one supplier, Invetec, but the addition of Luxshare has helped smooth manufacturing issues. As a result Luxshare might become main AirPod supplier, and even enter the HomePod supply chain.
The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Jelly measures all of 92.4 x 43 x 13mm, making it tiny compared to most smartphones. It run on Android 7.0 and promises to be a fully-fledged smartphone, with the plastic shell packing a 1.1GHz processor, 1/2GB RAM, 8/16GB internal storage (expandable via microSD card slot), 4G LTE connectivity and dual-SIM capability.
An initial 6 month pilot has 3 Maplin stores-- St Paul's, Monument and Stevenage-- host iSmash concessions, before eventual rollout across the retailer's 200-store portfolio should it prove a success.
Jeong-hwan is a long-time LG employee, having been involvied in the development of one of the first LG smartphones in 2009 as head of the CTO's multimedia R&D lab. In the meantime Juno Cho gets a new role within the LG parent company.
