Some folks are a bit upset at rumors – likely accurate – that Apple will ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7. There’s an entire argument on the fact that Apple’s solution won’t deliver high-quality analog audio to headphones out of the box, which is fair enough. But there’s a good reason Apple is ditching the headphone jack.
NPD published figures on Thursday that note that Bluetooth headphones outsold wired headphones for the first time in June. That means the majority of folks who are buying new headphones aren’t even using the headphone jack anyway. And that’s just a part of the reason.
NPD also noted that Beats has the lion’s share of the Bluetooth headphone market in the U.S., leading the way in dollar sales for the month of June ahead of LG, Bose, Jaybird and Skullcandy, respectively. Apple-owned Beats and LG alone account for 65 percent of dollar sales, too, which means they’re making most of the money in the business.
These figures show it makes perfect sense for Apple to ditch the headphone jack. Not only are people moving to Bluetooth headphones, they’re buying Apple’s Bluetooth headphones. This will encourage that even more.
