Given Apple’s absolute dominance in supply-chain, I find this very unlikely.
The reality is, Apple (either through the Apple brand or through Beats), was the only electronics company that could realistically achieve the economies of scale to sell truly wireless earbuds at this MSRP in 2016, but that doesn’t mean the margins don’t get bigger every single month. It’s true that the margins might be lower for another company, but audio is an insanely high margin industry. Even in retail, the markup between retailer cost and MSRP is often at least 50% — it Is often higher. And if you have the scale and supply chain to own literals every part and churn out a headset, it’s even higher.
The reality is, Apple (either through the Apple brand or through Beats), was the only electronics company that could realistically achieve the economies of scale to sell truly wireless earbuds at this MSRP in 2016, but that doesn’t mean the margins don’t get bigger every single month. It’s true that the margins might be lower for another company, but audio is an insanely high margin industry. Even in retail, the markup between retailer cost and MSRP is often at least 50% — it Is often higher. And if you have the scale and supply chain to own literals every part and churn out a headset, it’s even higher.