Us Market Segmentation for Headphones

Marketing Segmentation

In order to establish a successful business in the large competitive market, there are essential factors to be focusing on, it is important to concern about the consumption behaviour and to define the consumer target correctly to understand the market need. Market Segmentation involves grouping consumers or business customers within a market into smaller segments based on similar needs, attitudes or behaviour that marketing can address. According to Kotler and Keller, they said it’s the company decision to choose which group they want to target and therefore the companies need to dividing the consumers into different segments (Kotler and Keller, 2009).

Acoustic membrane US market segmentation B2B customers would have a more complex decision-making unit and be more ‘rational’ compared with B2C market. The most common approach to segmentation in B2B markets is feature based. Where the target market is divided into groups based on firmographics such as company size, location or activity. This approach may also segment the market according to Attitudes, Behaviours and Needs of the company.

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Figure : B2B Segmentation Dimensions

Source: (Circle Research White Pape, 2017)

Firmographics

Firmographics refers to organizational characteristics including industry, location, size, structure and performance as presented in Figure below. And since the acoustic membrane market in US is having a trend on the hearable manufacturing, so our targeting group among this category will be the designers, which are the most profitable potential markets for acoustic membranes.

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Source: (Smith, 2013)

According to the Statista the US Market size of the Hearable devices specifically the headphones are showing a significant increase of the headphone sales from 2013 to 2017 as shown in Figure below. In 2015, factory level headphone sales in the United States amounted to 2.06 billion U.S. so based on that the US markets are showing positives and bigger growth to the future, that makes it a favourable target for the acoustic waterproofing membranes.

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Figure: Headphones sale in US from 2013-2017.

Attitudes

PIL Membranes Ltd company based in UK that has been existence for over 30 years. The company products are specified with waterproof, breathable membranes called Porelle. This main product Porelle have manufactured a membrane that has excellent waterproofing ability and acoustic sound transmission properties, which can be used in the manufacturing of herbal devices for waterproofing protections. The company grown into a domestic and international supplier but they are looking for global opportunities to expand their sales. So Instead of building relationships with the local manufacturers, very few of which are based in the USA, it is suggested seeking new opportunities with the designs companies in;

    1) Large enterprises

    2) Start-up companies

Large enterprises can provide great opportunity for many reasons:

• They are the Market leaders, so they will have high volume of end users.
• They are having a Strong financing, which may support within R&D.
• They are having a long-term strategy, which can provide a sustainable development for a long-term relationship.
• Preferable Capacity, which means large volume of purchase.

Apple had designed its own wireless chip, and they were entering the hearables world by launching their own brand of earbuds, known as Airpods. AirPods have been the top seller in online wireless headphone sales since the product's release in December 2016.AirPods accounted for 26% of the US market as presented in Figure (). Based on that Apple have many manufactures that its way its easier to contact the design companies in the first place.