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Survey of chemical substances in headphones and hearing protection aids 5 Survey of the market for headphones
5.1 The market for headphonesThe market for headphones is estimated on a basis of a number of different sources. 5.1.1 Statistics DenmarkStatistics Denmark does not sum up import and export of headphones in units, but only in kilos and kroner. The following information is available in the statistics bank for the product group “Headphones and earphones, also combined with a microphone, except handset for wire telephony” for 2006:
The industry’s sales of the product line “8518302000 Headphones and earphones, handset for wire telephony, also combined with a microphone, not for civil flights” amounted in 2006 to 178,736 units at a value of 25.8 million kroner which gives an average unit price of about 144 DKK. If it is assumed that the same unit price is valid for imported and exported goods the Danish consumption, measured as the difference between import and export, amounts to approx. 225,000 units. However, it is noted that the definitions of products for foreign trade and the industry’s sales of own goods are not identical. It is also noted that many headphones are probably sold as a part of a product packet in which a sound source is included such as e.g. a MP3 player. 5.1.2 Danish Trade Organisation for Consumer ElectronicsThe Danish Trade Organisation for Consumer Electronics (Brancheforeningen for Forbrugerelektronik) does not assess the sales of headphones as a separate product group in their public statistics (www.bfe.dk). However, it is possible to get an idea of the magnitude of the market by looking at the number of sold products where it can be relevant to use a headphone. For battery-powered (“transportable”) audio products the following information about sales figures in 2006 is available:
It is most likely the smaller products such as cassette, CD and MP3 players which are sold with a set of headphones and if each of the sold products within the three product groups has included purchase of headphones too there is the possibility that at least 500,000 headphones have been sold in the Danish market in 2006, solely to transportable audio systems. As transportable audio systems are in question it must be assumed that the main part of the sold products is On-ear or In-ear headphones as Around-ear headphones will normally be regarded as inelegant in this connection. A number of purchasers of transportable music systems will already have a set of headphones which can be applied to the new product. On the other hand, in cases where a set of headphones is included, the purchasers of music systems will often choose to buy a set of a better quality so that in fact they get two sets but of course only use one of them. Approximately 125,000 stationary music systems were sold. Headphones will be a natural supplementary purchase for many but if the buyer already has a set of Around-ear headphones of a good quality, he will probably seldom replace these. Besides headphones for music playing, there are probably also sold some headphones for use with PC’s (IP telephony, computer games in network). Most of these headphones will be in the form of On-ear headsets, including a microphone. Furthermore, In-ear headphones will be sold for use with mobile phones. The information from the Danish Trade Organisation for Consumer Electronics does not give any possibility of estimating how many of these types of headphones are sold annually. 5.1.3 ElreturElretur is the Danish system ensuring that all electrical and electronic waste is handled in an environmentally responsible way. The industry has to report the sales of relevant product groups to Elretur. According to Lars Lyng from Elretur, a sale of about 65,000 units per month for the product group headphones is reported which also includes among others clock radios and small transistor radios. 5.1.4 Total estimate of the market of headphonesIn total it is estimated that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 sets of headphones are sold annually. It is not possible to give a detailed picture of the distribution on the different types but it is our estimate that the largest number of sold products is to be found within the sub-groups On-ear and In-ear headphones as during the recent years the development has been in the direction of producing “small” products with a satisfactory sound. 5.2 Identification of producers of headphonesThe preliminary survey of the market is primarily completed on basis on searches on the Internet. The following web-sites have been visited to identify which producers who have their products for sale on the Danish market, either in physical shops and/or in Internet shops. www.itbutikken.dk (Internet shop) www.enavia.com (Internet shop) www.itonline.dk (Internet shop) www.elgiganten.dk (El-Giganten) www.aage.dk (the music house Aage Jensen) www.avc.dk (Audio Visuelt Centrum) www.merlin.dk (Merlin) www.eskilsen.dk (Super Sound) www.nbradio.dk (Internet shop) www.hifiklubben.dk (Hi-Fi Klubben) www.itbutikken.dk (Internet shop) www.hifishoppen (Internet shop) www.itonline.dk (Internet shop) www.fona.dk (Fona) www.midtdata.dk (Internet shop) www.computercity.dk (Computer City) The screening of these web-sites showed that there are at least 70 suppliers of different types of headphones. A quick estimate based on the available prices indicates that the vast majority of products can in general be characterized as being of a rather good quality with a price above 100 DKK. The list of producers is found in Table 1. Table 1. List of producers of headphones, found through Internet search.
5.3 Information from producersAs the next step in the survey a number of producers’ homepages, chosen at random, were visited with the intension partly to estimate the number of different products, partly to find the key information directly, e.g. which materials gets into contact with the skin when using headphones. A visit to about 50 homepages showed that most individual producers had a wide selection of products. Several producers had more than 50 different products within the categories ”Around-ear”, ”On-ear” and ”In- ear”. It was not possible to assess unambiguously whether all products are in fact marketed in Denmark but with the distribution of especially Internet shops with large selections it is a realistic estimate that the number of headphone products on the Danish market is in the order of magnitude of 2000. The visits to the same homepages also showed that as a principal rule a set of technical specifications for each product is available but that they seldom contain any detailed information about the materials used. However, some producers have chosen for selected products to give an general description of the material being in contact with the ear, e.g. artificial leather, PVC, thermoplastic PUR, silicone, velvet, velour or plush. About 50 producers of headphones were contacted via e-mail or contact forms at their internet page. The purpose of the contact was to get direct information about the used materials and/or a possibility of getting more detailed information from sub-suppliers. As mentioned the intial knowledge-base was very poor and therefore a strategy with following head lines was applied. Producers giving information about one or more materials were asked for further information about the materials in question. If PVC was mentioned, questions about the use of plasticizers were asked. If artificial leather was mentioned, it was asked whether the plastic component was PVC, PUR or something else and questions about use of other additives were asked. The producers were also asked whether they used other materials which come into contact with the ear and finally, they were asked whether they have had complains from customers about irritation or allergy from the use of headphones. If there was no information about the use of (specified) materials, it was asked which materials gets into contact with the ear, whether they contained additives and if so, which additives. Also this group of producers was asked whether they had received complains from the customers. In certain cases, if a producer from one of two groups markets a large number of products, questions about only a few of these were asked. The background for this strategy was that it was assumed that the task of giving a satisfactory answer for all products would be so demanding in terms of resoures that the producer would choose to ignore the request for this very reason. The results of the Internet searches and requests to producers are reported in the next chapters.
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