Speaking of Apple

In the past, Apple stores have offered a variety of accessories, particularly headphones and speakers from a number of companies separate from Apple itself.  At the end of last month however, Apple removed such products from its physical locations, similar to the way in which it remove Fitbit products from its stores in 2014, right after it released the Apple Watch.  While Apple has made 3rd party changes to its store line-ups before, the removal of Sonus (SONO), Bose (pvt), and Logitech (LOGI) products eliminates all non-Apple 3rd party headphones and speakers, which leads one down the path to a new crop of HomePod speakers and AirPod/Beats headphones, and gives credibility to the rumor that Apple was close to releasing over-the-ear headphones (AirPods Studio) sometime this year.  Apple has been rumored to already be producing the new headphones at a plant in Vietnam.
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More surprising is the elimination of all 3rd party speakers, as the speaker rumor mill has been suggesting a HomePod mini rather than a revamped high-end HomePod line-up, but pushing Apple users toward only Apple products, particularly those associated with subscription services will add to Apple’s service capture ratio and looking at the speaker line combined with a broader headphone line certainly keeps Apple-only products in contention with its former 3rd party suppliers.  Assumedly the higher-end headphones will carry a higher margin and while volumes will be lower, it will certainly be better than losing a sale to a competitor and the potential for a new subscriber.