International Data Corporation (IDC) has released its worldwide wearable device market quarterly tracker for the second quarter of 2026. According to the data, global ear-worn device shipments reached 96.13 million units in Q2 2026, representing a 5.4% year-over-year increase. Among these, open-ear headphones shipped 12.33 million units, growing 35.0% year-over-year. While this growth rate leads all product categories, it marks a slowdown compared to the first quarter, with significant divergence within the segment: ear-clip styles surged 82.2%, ear-hook styles declined 5.1%, and neckband styles grew only 0.9%.

These figures indicate that manufacturers can no longer rely on a single hit product or a single selling point to win. They must address four critical questions: which form factor to choose, which ecosystem advantages to leverage, how to implement AI features, and how to navigate compliance requirements for global expansion.

Form Factor Divergence: The Market Moves Beyond Broad-Based Growth, Requiring Strategic Choices

Ear-clip products continue to harvest market dividends through their form factor advantages, achieving a remarkable 82.2% year-over-year growth in Q2. Meanwhile, the growth momentum for ear-hook and neckband styles is gradually weakening. The open-ear category is transitioning away from the phase of universal growth across all form factors, moving toward structural competition characterized by form factor segmentation and scenario-specific differentiation. The value gap among different form factors within the segment continues to widen, prompting manufacturers to adopt differentiated form factor strategies based on their own resources.

Ear-Clip Style: The Core Growth Engine of the Category, Driven by Both Experience and Fashion

The ear-clip segment continued its explosive growth trajectory in the second quarter, with its share of total open-ear shipments surpassing 60%. It has become the core engine driving the entire open-ear category's expansion. The ear-clip style leads in both shipment volume and year-over-year growth rate, a result of the convergence of multiple factors including wearing comfort, product positioning, and manufacturer supply strategies.

From the wearing experience perspective, the ear-concha clamping structure naturally accommodates glasses wearers, while the lightweight design reduces discomfort during extended use. In terms of product positioning, it transcends the purely functional audio device role, adding fashion accessory value. The rich color options and accompanying accessories endow the product with social attributes, supporting premium pricing. On the supply side, smartphone brands and audio manufacturers have formed a tiered market structure: leading smartphone brands establish brand benchmarks with high-end models, while value-oriented manufacturers leverage rapid design iteration and hardware specification upgrades to roll out multi-price-point product lines, reaching a broader consumer base.

Ear-Hook Style: Low-End Share Contracts, Focus Shifts to Sports Scenarios

Ear-hook product shipments declined 5.1% year-over-year in Q2, with the share of low-priced products under $25 continuing to shrink. The influx of inexpensive ear-hook products that flooded the market during the early open-ear segment's growth phase is now being cleared out. As consumer awareness matures, low prices alone can no longer sustain user conversion, and market demand is shifting toward higher-value segments. However, the ear-hook style has not entirely lost its competitive edge. Its larger body size provides unique advantages in sports-wearing stability, extended battery life, noise cancellation processing, and the ability to accommodate AI chips, offering potential for differentiation in the future.

Neckband Style: Growth Plateaus, Deepening Specialty Niche Scenarios

Neckband products have entered a phase of slow growth, with Q2 shipments increasing only 0.9% year-over-year, and the number of manufacturers entering this segment remains limited. Compared to ear-clip and ear-hook form factors, neckbands suffer from portability constraints, making them less competitive in the general consumer market. Nevertheless, leveraging bone conduction technology, local storage capabilities, and the stability afforded by behind-the-neck wearing, they retain irreplaceable value in specialized sports scenarios such as swimming, where the phone is not accessible.

IDC believes the open-ear market's growth dividend is no longer universally benefiting all form factors. Manufacturers must make deliberate choices: pursue scale and premium pricing with ear-clip designs, leverage the larger body of ear-hook products to carry advanced features and explore audio and AI interaction value beyond sports scenarios, and maintain a focus on niche essential needs with neckband products. Building competitiveness through a scenario-based product portfolio is essential.

Ecosystem Competition: Manufacturers Walk Different Paths Based on Their Strengths

In Q2 2026, China remains the largest regional market globally for open-ear headphones, accounting for more than 60% of shipments. Chinese manufacturers dominate the global market through first-mover advantages and supply chain capabilities. International first-tier audio brands are following with conservative iterations focused on the high-end segment. Emerging players, represented by Indian manufacturers, are capturing global budget markets through extremely low pricing. The differentiated competition among market camps is becoming increasingly pronounced. Manufacturers should anchor their positioning in their own resource endowments, establish clear differentiation, and unlock growth opportunities through long-term competitiveness.

First-Mover Specialists (represented by Shokz): These manufacturers entered the open-ear segment early, building core barriers in bone conduction technology and sound leakage control. Initially focused on professional sports scenarios, they have gradually expanded into full-form-factor products including ear-hook and ear-clip styles, transitioning toward mass-market audio brands. These companies can leverage established brand awareness to accelerate penetration into the general consumer market while continuously strengthening core acoustic technologies to fend off latecomers. They must also carefully balance high-end technology positioning with mass-market pricing. In overseas markets, they can capitalize on brand reputation built among sports users to broaden global growth opportunities.

Mass-Market Audio Manufacturers (represented by Edifier and Baseus): These players target young consumers with high cost-performance ratios, comprehensive price-tier product matrices, and trendy designs. They achieve scale distribution through volume-based product launches and collaborate with third-party large language model companies to implement various cloud-based AI features in the Chinese market, advancing basic intelligent experiences for open-ear headphones. These manufacturers should move beyond pure price competition, create distinctive product highlights, and avoid building a brand perception of heavy marketing and light quality. AI features must be grounded in genuine user needs, avoiding gimmick-driven design, while also planning product solutions for overseas markets where AI services may face regulatory restrictions.

Smartphone Ecosystem Manufacturers: Accelerating their push into the high-end open-ear segment in 2026, these companies leverage their proprietary operating systems to achieve multi-device ecosystem synergy. By combining on-device and cloud AI computing power, they deliver low-latency interaction experiences, positioning earphones as extension gateways to their smart ecosystems and elevating brand premium value. These manufacturers should appropriately open their ecosystems to improve cross-device compatibility. They must balance ecosystem advantages with core acoustic performance, avoiding the pitfall of prioritizing ecosystem over sound quality. For overseas markets, they can leverage the distribution channels and user bases of their other exported products to achieve ecosystem synergy and user reuse, while ensuring compliance with AI regulations in various regions to support global expansion.

International and Emerging Manufacturers: Brands such as Bose, Sony, and Sennheiser have cultivated the high-end audio market for years, entering the open-ear segment with deep acoustic tuning expertise and audio coding technology. However, their overall new product introduction pace remains relatively conservative, with slower product refresh cycles. Indian manufacturers are capturing fast-growing budget markets globally by offering entry-level products at extremely low prices. International high-end manufacturers need to accelerate local product iteration to better align with the usage scenarios of Chinese consumers. Emerging low-cost manufacturers, having achieved volume, should moderately enhance product quality to progressively build brand value.

AI Implementation: Shifting from Marketing Gimmick to Productivity Tool

Basic translation and office functions have rapidly proliferated through cloud computing power, but advanced scenarios such as low-latency call translation still rely on on-device NPUs and software-hardware coordination. Currently, most AI features remain at the level of marketing talking points. Whoever can transform AI from a "gimmick" into a "stable and reliable productivity tool" will gain a decisive competitive advantage.

Form Factor Advantages: Extended Wearing Duration Provides the Foundation for AI Implementation

Open-ear headphones, with their non-in-ear design, support all-day wear and serve as natural hardware terminals for audio capture and sound output. In the Chinese market, AI has become the next growth engine for the open-ear category, with office and translation applications emerging as the primary commercialization scenarios at this stage.

Technology Path Divergence: Cloud Popularizes Basic Functions, On-Device Supports Advanced Productivity

Around AI implementation, two distinct technology paths have emerged within the industry:

The Cloud Path: Value-oriented brands generally partner with third-party large model companies, relying on cloud computing to deliver face-to-face translation and basic office AI capabilities, with the earphones handling only sound pickup and playback. This approach keeps hardware costs controllable and allows rapid deployment of AI capabilities as premium selling points. However, functional homogenization is evident, and interaction experiences remain relatively superficial.

The On-Device-Cloud Synergy Path: Certain smartphone manufacturers and traditional technology companies are focusing on advanced productivity scenarios such as low-latency call translation, which demands rigorous capabilities in microphone arrays, noise reduction algorithms, on-device-cloud coordination, and system adaptation. Related flagship earphones are equipped with high-performance NPUs, introducing on-device local computing power to support complex AI tasks. However, these products carry premium pricing, and some lack acoustic heritage, resulting in weaknesses in entertainment experiences.

Capability Gaps: Cloud Path Has Features Without Experience; On-Device-Cloud Path Has Capability Without Scale

Both paths have shortcomings: the cloud path offers "features without experience," while the on-device approach provides "capability without scale." The industry must balance AI productivity capabilities, core acoustic experiences, and product pricing to genuinely transform AI from a "selling point" into "productivity."

A New Chapter in Global Expansion: Chinese Manufacturers Lead Worldwide, But Compliance and Localization Are Non-Negotiable

Chinese manufacturers, through first-mover advantages and supply chain capabilities, occupy over 60% of global open-ear headphone shipments. However, going global is not simply about shipping products overseas. Regional differences across overseas markets are significant: the European and American markets have well-established sports scenarios where users value brand and product quality; Southeast Asia's booming e-commerce channels concentrate young consumer groups who prefer design-driven products; and India competes through extremely low-cost products targeting budget segments. Meanwhile, constraints including regional data privacy regulations, language localization requirements, and restricted AI services demand that manufacturers embed compliance and localization capabilities at the product definition stage. Domestic AI solutions cannot be directly transplanted overseas; language coverage requires advance planning, and data storage and processing must align with local regulations.

Going global is not "selling domestic products overseas" but rather "redefining products for overseas markets." Future competition will no longer focus on the presence or absence of AI features, but rather on the comprehensive contest of on-device-cloud synergy capabilities, the reliability of AI experiences across multiple scenarios, overall acoustic strength, and localization compliance and scenario adaptation capabilities for overseas markets.

Conclusion: Form Factor Selection, Acoustic Expertise, and Global AI Implementation Form the Integrated Barriers for the Next Round of Competition

Open-ear headphones have moved beyond the era of universal growth dividends, entering a new phase characterized by form factor stratification, ecosystem competition, AI implementation, and global compliance. As the tide of growth dividends recedes, competition becomes a comprehensive contest of form factor choices, acoustic foundations, and the ability to implement AI globally. Manufacturers must position themselves based on their own resource endowments, balancing acoustic fundamentals, scenario-based AI experiences, and overseas localization compliance to build sustainable growth curves in an increasingly differentiated market.