True Wireless Stereo: The race to be truly wireless

From being mere accompaniments to smartphones, headphones and earphones have come a long way, and also shed some baggage over time. In the work-from-home and study-from-home scenarios, this category has seen huge growth in 2020, especially led by new technologies such as true wireless stereo or TWS, first popularised by Apple AirPods. TWS earpieces do not have a connector and come with charging cases.

According to Counterpoint Research, shipment of TWS devices in India grew 656% during April-June 2020, with Realme, Xiaomi and JBL accounting for about 57% of the market. Shilpi Jain, research analyst at Counterpoint Research, estimates that the overall shipment for TWS devices in 2020 would cross 10 million.