five years four models and after millions of units being sold it does look like the craze for airpods is finally slowing down a report by research firm canalys reveals that the global airpods shipments fell drastically in q3 2021 for a while now the airpods have been setting quite a fast pace in the true wireless market apple still remains the undisputed leader but the numbers are dwindling here are four reasons why people arent that crazy about airpodsthe numbers gamebefore we get into the reasons lets take a look at the numbers according to canalys apple shipped about 178 million units of true wireless earbuds this includes the ones old under the beats brand in q3 2021 airpods shipments are down 338 as in the corresponding quarter last year apple had shipped 268 million units apple remains the market leader with a 246 market share but this number too is down from 376 in q3 2020 too many players in the marketthe tws market has grown rapidly in the last few years almost every smartphone brand audio brand and even the likes of amazon have true wireless earbuds of their own the canalys numbers prove this almost 49 of the market was accounted by others which means that a lot of players have been chipping away at the sales of airpods audio players such as jabra sony and jbl are now taking an increasingly aggressive stance by peppering tws models across a range of price points said canalys research analyst sherry jinthe replacement cycle is long for airpodspeople who have airpods dont change them for at least two years unless they go kaput if you have a pair of any airpods chances are that they will last easily for more than two years this means that the existing customers dont upgrade too regularly and adding new customers in an ultracompetitive space is a challenging task apples delay in refreshing the airpods line upalmost every brand launches multiple options every year take the case of samsung which has two flagship tws in 2021 samsung is second in the market 12 market share players like jabra too launch multiple devices every year in comparison apple in five years has had three airpods variants in tws and one airpods max in the overtheear category people end up waiting for newer airpods to arrive but they dont come sooner than expected apple has adopted a twoyear update cycle till now but that might change as the new airpods pro are expected later next year the thirdgen airpods were launched in october and in all probability will turn out to be a bestseller at least canalys expects together with the release of the thirdgeneration airpods the global tws market is expected to return to robust growth in q4 in time for the holiday season the research firm noted cheaper alternatives galorein india the cheapest airpods you can get is for rs 12500 which is the secondgen variant and launched in 2019