In recent years, with the breakthrough and evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, a fierce battle for AI entry has quietly emerged and become a major wave in the past two years. In this battle, various AI hardware devices have emerged and become the focus of market attention. Among them, AI headphones have shown strong market potential with their outstanding performance.
AI translation headphones are popular in overseas markets
With the acceleration of globalization, the trend of Chinese companies going overseas is unstoppable, and "going out" has become a must-answer question for many Chinese companies. Whether it is the highly anticipated European and American markets, or the Southeast Asian region that follows closely, Chinese brands are competing and competing fiercely in more and more places with an unprecedented trend.
Recently, a Chinese brand headset equipped with advanced AI translation function has been extremely popular. It has not only topped the list of popular products in TikTok's US region, but its sales volume has also remained high. According to FastMoss data, MINISO's X15 Pro headphones have broken the sales volume of more than 120,000 pieces in the past three months, with a total GMV of more than 1.35 million US dollars.
According to information, MINISO X15 Pro is an OWS open-ear headset equipped with Al translation. Through the new Al technology, it can achieve real-time online translation in 148 languages. In addition, with the exclusive App, it can also realize Al binaural translation, headphone + mobile phone translation, Al chat and many other functions.
In fact, as early as the Black Friday in 2024, MINISO relied on three translation headphones to control the TikTok US market and achieved peak sales. According to Nox data, in the first week of December, MINISO's three headphones X15 Pro, X28 OWS, and X30 OWS ranked at the top of the TikTok sales list in the US with sales of 170,400, 116,100, and 69,100 respectively.
Of course, it is not only MINISO that is selling well, but also a Bluetooth translation headset called PAXA OpenAir 5 OWS. According to Echotik data, this headset was officially launched on October 11, 2024. In less than two months, a total of 157,300 units were sold, with total sales reaching US$2.65 million, quickly ranking at the top of the best-selling list.
In addition, there is a translation headset sold at a price of about US$30 in a digital store, which also raked in US$1.8 million in sales in one month and successfully ranked among the best-selling products. There are even TikTok influencers who have earned up to $300,000 in sales commissions by shooting short videos promoting translation headphones.
It can be seen that these so-called smart headphones equipped with advanced AI translation functions have attracted the attention of many consumers and have been frantically ordered, ushering in an unprecedented hot sales frenzy in overseas markets such as the United States. In this regard, relevant industry insiders said that after the headphone app was connected to the AI assistant and translation functions, the monthly sales of a certain headphone jumped from 2 million yuan to about 8 million yuan.
Why are AI headphones "out of the circle"?
In the surging wave of globalization, language barriers have become a "high wall" for many people in cross-border travel, business meetings and cultural exchanges, hindering smooth communication. With the frequent cross-border interactions, people's demand for smart devices that can translate languages anytime and anywhere has increased sharply.
As a portable device that integrates fashion, intelligence and sound quality, AI smart headphones have gradually evolved from a simple tool for listening to music and making calls to a multi-functional multimedia information receiving device. It is one of the common devices in people's daily life and has shown significant advantages in cross-language communication. Connect to the mobile phone via Bluetooth, and use powerful AI algorithms and cloud translation technology to achieve real-time translation.
At the same time, the advent of the AI era, especially the continuous maturity of large model technology, has made various technology companies realize that hardware devices will be an important carrier for the implementation of AI technology. The maturity of AI technology provides a solid foundation for the intelligent upgrade of headphones. The deep integration of audio technology with AI's speech recognition, natural language processing, noise reduction algorithms and other technologies not only has the sound quality enjoyment of traditional headphones, but also enables headphones to achieve smarter interaction, better noise reduction and more powerful functions.
For example, based on deep learning algorithms, by learning and identifying a large amount of voice data, the user's voice can be accurately captured and understood; at the same time, through natural language processing technology, the headphones are given the ability to understand and analyze human language, so as to more accurately grasp the speaker's intentions. In addition, in order to improve the accuracy of voice recognition, AI translation headphones use advanced noise reduction technology, which can effectively filter out noise impurities in the surrounding environment, accurately capture and present pure human voices, thereby greatly improving the accuracy of voice recognition. Moreover, AI smart headphones can also make personalized recommendations and services based on user preferences and habits, bringing users unprecedented experience and opening up new development directions for the headphone industry.
In conclusion
"In the future, AI function will become the most important growth point for headphones", which has become a consensus reached by many industry insiders. Whether it is the translation headphones that are popular in overseas markets, or AI quietly stimulating consumers' new demand for headphones, it has strongly proved the huge market potential of using AI function as the core selling point of headphones. Looking to the future, driven by both technological innovation and user needs, AI headphones will be full of infinite possibilities, and it will continue to evolve, bringing us more surprises and conveniences beyond imagination.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
