Bluetooth data shows wireless headphones are dying

New data from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group paints a grim picture for the headphone category. According to the organization’s new Bluetooth Market Dashboard, Bluetooth headphone shipments are projected to fall at a -19% compound annual growth rate between 2025 and 2030, dropping from roughly 330 million units to just 118 million. Curiously, it’s the only device category in the entire forecast to show negative growth.

The contrast with earbuds is stark. Where headphones are shrinking, earbuds are projected to grow at 15% over the same period, climbing from around 400 million shipments in 2025 to 815 million by 2030. Consumers aren’t buying fewer personal audio devices; they’re just buying different ones. Over-ear headphones, it seems, are increasingly losing out to the form factor that fits in a pocket.

Because Bluetooth’s own description of the headphone category reads “continued innovation in audio quality, battery life, and new audio standards support steady growth in this segment,” I thought there must have been some kind of mistake. That certainly isn’t an accurate description of a category in freefall, after all. But when we reached out for comment on the discrepancy, a spokesperson said the organization had nothing official to say.

Do users really prefer earbuds that much more, to the point of abandoning headphones? Earbuds offer most of what headphones do, and add portability, discretion, and increasingly, health and fitness features, often at a lower price point. Over-ear headphones’ remaining advantages, primarily sound quality and passive isolation, may not be enough to hold the mass market. By 2030, the forecast suggests headphones will have gone from the default personal audio device to a niche product.