Open-Ear Headphones & Learning Tablets: China's New 3C Darlings

Newer data: China's Online Earphone Market: Open-Ear at 18% of Wireless

Executive Summary#

Two categories grew far faster than China's broader 3C (consumer electronics) market in Q1 2024, while overall 3C revenue came under pressure across the marketplaces covered. Open-ear headphone revenue grew 337.9% YoY to CN¥ 990 million, and the category's share of total headphone sales rose from 2.8% to 12.4% in just over a year. Learning tablets (学习机) reached CN¥ 1.9 billion, up 203.3% YoY, with March 2024 sales rivalling the Double 11 promotional peaks. Both categories follow the same logic: consumers are willing to pay a premium when a product solves a specific lifestyle problem. For headphones that problem is comfort and awareness of their surroundings, and for education devices it is eye protection and AI tutoring. Huawei's FreeClip and Xueersi (TAL) (学而思) offer useful examples of how brands have approached each segment.

Open-Ear Headphones: A Category Disruption in Progress#

From Niche to 12.4% of Headphone Sales in Fourteen Months#

Open-ear headphones, defined by a form factor that does not sit inside the ear and including clip-on and open-back designs, generated CN¥ 990 million in revenue in Q1 2024, up 337.9% YoY. The category's share of total headphone sales rose from 2.8% in early 2023 to 12.4% by Q1 2024, as users who prioritise comfort and awareness of their surroundings during activities moved away from in-ear and over-ear formats. Social media discussion grew nearly 14x YoY and has built awareness well ahead of mainstream adoption, which we believe points to further growth in the category's penetration.

Huawei (华为) entered the category with the FreeClip in December 2023, SANAG is also active in it, and Shokz (韶音) brought its OpenRun Air bone conduction model to a consumer base that had largely not bought open-ear headphones before.

What Consumers Are Buying For#

Sales by selling point show clearly what consumers value. "Secure/stable fit" generated CN¥ 160 million in revenue in Q1 2024, up 13009.6% YoY, the most of the high-growth selling points, while "air/bone conduction" technology reached CN¥ 88.92 million, up 161972.2% YoY, and "ultra-lightweight" CN¥ 5.13 million, up 19551.4% YoY. Consumers are buying headphones that stay out of the ear and out of the way, and audio fidelity and connectivity specifications do not appear among the fastest-growing selling points.

Source: Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察)

The main use cases support this pattern: consumers listen to music while commuting and exercising, situations in which conventional in-ear headphones either block the sound of their surroundings, which is a safety concern outdoors, or become uncomfortable over long periods. Stability during sport and all-day comfort in the office are secondary use cases that drive repeat purchases.

Four Consumer Segments and One Positioning Decision#

Moojing's consumer analysis identifies four distinct groups of buyers in the open-ear headphone category: young students who listen while learning on the go, disciplined fitness enthusiasts who need stability during sport, fashion-conscious trendsetters who treat the headphones as an accessory, and practical office workers who want all-day comfort for calls and focused work. The demographic profile is changing in two ways that usually mark a category's move from early adopters to the mass market. The proportion of male consumers is rising in a category whose buyers previously skewed towards lifestyle platforms with female audiences, and buyers are spreading from Tier 1 cities into New Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

We believe brands entering the category need to commit to one primary segment before extending to others. Huawei chose fashion-conscious trendsetters and Shokz chose fitness enthusiasts, and each has applied its positioning consistently across product design, pricing and the choice of marketing channels.

Case Study: Huawei FreeClip's Fashion-First Launch#

Huawei launched the FreeClip in December 2023 at CN¥ 1,299. The product's C-shaped minimalist design, very low weight, fashion colourways (Flowing Purple and Starry Black) and integration with the HarmonyOS ecosystem gave it appeal across several consumer segments at once, and its marketing was planned with equal care.

An endorsement by the actress Guan Xiaotong, who wore purple facial makeup matched to the product's colourway, targeted young female consumers who follow beauty and fashion trends. Huawei added outreach to KOLs in technology, automotive and beauty, each of whom reached a different community of consumers through their own content formats. A large volume of KOC (Key Opinion Consumer) reviews and seeding content on Xiaohongshu (小红书) helped consumers discover the product for themselves, and the product sold out despite a large initial allocation of stock.

We believe other brands can learn from the FreeClip's approach, which designed the product as an accessory as well as a functional device, chose endorsements that speak to how consumers see themselves, and seeded content across social platforms before scaling up paid promotion.

Learning Tablets: AI and Eye Protection Rewrite the Category#

CN¥ 1.9 Billion at +203.3%, and a March That Rivalled Double 11#

The learning tablet (学习机) market reached CN¥ 1.9 billion in revenue in Q1 2024, with unit sales up 56.7% YoY at an average selling price of CN¥ 2,112.7. Popular products are priced between CN¥ 3,699 and CN¥ 6,599, and flagship models approach CN¥ 10,000. The strongest sign of demand is that sales in March 2024 matched or exceeded the historical peaks of the Double 6 and Double 11 promotions. This shows that by early 2024 parents were buying learning tablets throughout the year with clear intent, where purchases used to depend on promotions.

China's "Double Reduction" policy (双减, 2021), which reduced off-campus tutoring hours for K-12 students, continues to redirect parents' education spending towards hardware that supports learning at home. This policy combines with two technologies that are advancing at the same time: the integration of AI tutoring systems (such as the Baidu ERNIE large language model and personalised learning modes) and eye-protection hardware (e-ink screens and paper-like displays). Parents can therefore justify a learning tablet on educational grounds and on the eye-protection claims that brands make.

Xueersi (TAL) launched its second-generation flagship in December 2023, and education brands such as Zuoyebang (作业帮) competed in Q1 2024 with technology-first brands such as Xiaodu (小度) and Xiaoyuan (小猿).

Eye Protection: The Gap Between Reviews and Decisions#

Consumer research shows a clear gap in how brands market the category. E-commerce reviews rarely mention eye protection explicitly, but in consumer surveys 41.4% of respondents cited eye protection as a key purchase factor, and it is the most discussed product highlight on social media, where discussion of learning tablets grew 209.1% YoY overall.

Source: Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察)

The gap suggests that eye protection works as a threshold attribute, which consumers screen for when they draw up a shortlist of brands. Having it earns no explicit praise in post-purchase reviews, and only its absence produces complaints. Brands should therefore put eye protection first in advertising and social media seeding content, where it influences which brands consumers choose, and use their e-commerce listings to emphasise performance and content quality, which are the attributes reviewers comment on most often after purchase.

Among eye protection technologies, e-ink screens reached CN¥ 390 million, up 2550.4% YoY, as parents have become more aware of the effect of blue light on children's eyes.

Consumers' complaints cluster in three areas: system performance, including lag and freezing (28.2% of complaints), durability and battery life (19.6%), and the breadth of content resources (18.7%). The industry describes its direction as "AI + Content + Hardware", while consumers describe their needs in functional terms, smooth performance and enough content. We believe brands that communicate in consumers' language in place of product specifications will close this gap faster.

Case Study: Xueersi's Launch Through Short-Video Commerce#

The Xueersi 2nd Generation Flagship Learning Machine, launched on December 19, 2023, was sold at a premium price on the strength of a comprehensive hardware and software upgrade, with a proprietary content library covering every grade, an AI tutoring system, Xueersi's own "Future Paper" display technology, a MediaTek 8-core CPU and a parent-child management system.

Its marketing was built around short-video commerce. Xueersi worked with the livestreamer Li Jiaqi (李佳琦) to draw traffic through live commerce, brought in mother-and-baby bloggers to reach parents, who make the purchase decision, and seeded a large volume of KOC product reviews on short-video platforms, where videos under the new product's topic passed 100 million views. Each group of influencers played a different part, with the livestreamer drawing traffic, the specialist bloggers lending credibility and the KOC content helping parents discover the product. Together they sold the tablet at premium prices without heavy discounting.

We believe Xueersi's launch shows that parents respond to two messages at once, AI and content quality, which speak to educational outcomes, and eye protection and premium display technology, which speak to the child's physical welfare. Both messages need to be present, and the channel mix has to reach parents where they watch content, which is increasingly on short-video platforms during evenings and weekends.

Key Takeaways#

• Open-ear headphone revenue grew 337.9% YoY to CN¥ 990 million in Q1 2024, and the category's share of total headphone sales rose to 12.4% from 2.8% fourteen months earlier, which suggests it is entering mass-market growth.
• Comfort drives purchases in this category more than audio quality does: secure fit (+13009.6% YoY), air/bone conduction (+161972.2%) and ultra-lightweight (+19551.4%) are the fastest-growing selling points.
• Social media discussion of open-ear headphones grew nearly 14x YoY, and buyers are spreading to male consumers and to New Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, both early signs of continued adoption.
• Huawei's FreeClip, launched in December 2023, was built on positioning as a fashion accessory, a coordinated celebrity endorsement, outreach to KOLs in several fields and KOC seeding on Xiaohongshu (小红书), and we believe the approach applies beyond headphones.
• Learning tablets reached CN¥ 1.9 billion, up 203.3% YoY, with March 2024 sales matching promotional-peak demand, and the Double Reduction policy continues to redirect parents' education spending towards hardware.
• Eye protection is the most discussed learning tablet highlight on social media and 41.4% of consumers cite it as a key purchase factor, yet it rarely appears in e-commerce reviews, so brands should lead with it in discovery channels and shift to performance messaging on product pages.
• E-ink screens alone reached CN¥ 390 million, up 2550.4% YoY, which shows how strongly parents respond to eye health claims.
• Xueersi's flagship launch combined live commerce with Li Jiaqi, credibility from specialist bloggers and KOC seeding that passed 100 million views under the product's topic.

About the Data#

This analysis draws on Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察) data on China's 3C consumer electronics market in Q1 2024. The data covers e-commerce sales on two leading Chinese marketplaces, social media listening on major Chinese social platforms, and consumer survey research. The period covered runs from January 2023 to March 2024.