The Headphone Jack Is Having Its Moment Again

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Apple killed the headphone jack in 2016 and sold everyone AirPods. It was a pretty clean business move. It just turns out not everyone bought it permanently.

After five straight years of declining sales, which bottomed out with a roughly RM196 million (US$42 million) revenue drop in 2024, wired headphones rebounded in 2025, growing around 3 per cent. Sales surged 10 per cent in the second half of the year and then jumped another 20 per cent in the first six weeks of 2026, according to analytics firm Circana.

It’s not a nostalgia blip, BTW. Multiple brands and price points are seeing growth simultaneously, a signal that the trend is widespread rather than concentrated in one market segment.

The industry spent a decade telling consumers that wires were a solved problem on their way out. Consumers, apparently, had other ideas.

A Decision Apple Made In 2016 Still Shapes What You Buy Today

When Apple shipped the iPhone 7 without a headphone jack, it did not just remove a port. It restructured a market.

Users were pushed toward AirPods or adapters, and the wireless earphone industry scaled accordingly. By mid-2016, Bluetooth headphones already accounted for 54 per cent of total stereo headphone sales. The share kept climbing.

What the industry did not fully account for was what happens when wireless devices age.

Wireless earbuds run on batteries that cannot be replaced, and most need replacing after two to three years as battery performance degrades to the point of being unusable.

A user who bought AirPods in 2020, replaced them in 2022 and again in 2024 has spent around RM2,400 (US$550) on earphones over that stretch. That same user could have bought a quality wired pair for RM60 to RM150 and still be on their first one.

The Price Gap Is Doing A Lot Of Work

The average selling price of wired headphones in 2025 sat at around RM61 (US$13), against roughly RM465 (US$99) for a wireless pair.

That average does not capture the full spread, but it illustrates the structural divergence between the two categories.

In Malaysia the numbers are just as stark.

Apple’s EarPods (USB-C) retail at RM99 through authorised resellers. The AirPods 4, Apple’s entry-level wireless option, starts at RM750 through official channels, with the ANC version at RM950 and the AirPods Pro 3 sitting above RM1,199.

Quality non-Apple wired earphones from Sennheiser and Sony are available on Shopee and Lazada for between RM60 and RM150.

Gen Z and younger millennials, the demographic most closely associated with the wired comeback, are also the group most squeezed by housing costs, rising energy prices and general cost-of-living increases over the past three years.

When necessities absorb more of a monthly income, the case for a RM950 wireless upgrade becomes harder to make.

The durability argument only adds to that.

A wired earphone has no battery to degrade, no charging case to misplace and no firmware to update. Handled with basic care, a decent pair lasts a decade.

The maths, for a growing number of buyers, no longer favours wireless.

When Bella Hadid Is Your Accidental Brand Ambassador

Economics rarely explain cultural shifts on their own. The other force here is image and specifically how wired earphones stopped signalling budget constraint and started signalling something closer to studied indifference.

The cultural traction began as early as 2019 when Bella Hadid was repeatedly photographed in public wearing wired earphones.

The implicit read was that someone who could afford AirPods was choosing not to wear them.

That indifference landed differently than wireless adoption ever could. Wireless earphones said you bought the upgrade. Wired earphones, on someone clearly unbothered, said the upgrade was not worth their time.

K-pop idols who previously appeared at airports with AirPods Max have since been photographed with more practical wired devices.

Jacob Elordi has been regularly spotted wearing wired earphones in public and at New York Fashion Week 2025, Dove Cameron wore a wired pair as a hair accessory.

Emma Watson, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande and Charli XCX have all been photographed with wired earphones in recent months.

On social media the framing shifted too. One widely shared post put it plainly: “It’s becoming a class thing. Wearing wireless 24/7 tells me you don’t own any land.”

The joke contains a real observation.

Performing wealth through consumer electronics has a ceiling and past a certain point, the more interesting signal is not having the newest thing.

Shelby Hull, founder of the Instagram account @wireditgirls, has written about the trend as something that runs deeper than aesthetics.

In her reading, she talks about a generation reaching for things that feel physically real in an environment that increasingly does not.

That pattern shows up elsewhere too.

Film cameras, vinyl records and feature phones, devices with limited connectivity and no notifications, are all seeing renewed interest among the same demographic.

The common thread is a preference for objects that do one thing without demanding attention in return.

A wired earphone plays music. It does not need charging, pairing or a case. It is exactly what it appears to be.

And The Audio, Actually, Is Better

According to a survey of 704 wired earphone users conducted by SoundGuys, audio quality was the primary reason for switching, cited by 48 per cent of respondents, ahead of practicality at 14 per cent, price at 14 per cent, environmental considerations at 9 per cent and fashion at 8 per cent.

Wired connections transmit uncompressed audio directly to the driver without the Bluetooth codec conversion that compresses the signal in wireless transmission.

For casual listening the difference is marginal, but for anyone paying attention to what they are hearing, it registers.

For Malaysian listeners streaming on Spotify’s lossless tier or Apple Music’s lossless catalogue, both available locally, the quality advantage is only fully realised through a wired connection.

The subscription already pays for the resolution but the earphone determines whether you actually hear it.

What This Means If You Are Shopping Now

Wireless is not going away.

Wireless devices still account for around 66 per cent of the global headphone market and for anyone moving around frequently, the case for wireless remains solid.

But for the significant portion of users whose primary listening happens at a desk, during a commute with a phone in hand or at home, the wired case is more straightforward than it has been in years.

At RM99 for a pair that will not run flat mid-playlist, will not need a charging case and will not need replacing in two years, the calculation has shifted.

The headphone jack may be gone from most flagship smartphones, but the wire found another way in.

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