Bose: Differentiate competition with audio technology I believe that users are willing to pay for high-end products

Text / Tencent Digital Zhao Yang

After 1 year, Bose updated the QuietComfort series headphones again, releasing the QuietComfort Noise Cancelling Headphones Ultra and the QuietComfort Noise Cancelling Earbuds Ultra. Two new Ultra headphone and earbud products incorporate immersive spatial audio technology to replace the previous Noise-cancelling Headphones 700 and QuietComfort Earbuds II, respectively.

Photo: Chief Product and Supply Chain Officer Raza Haider (left) Chief Marketing Officer Jim Mollica (right)

After the launch, Tencent Digital interviewed Raza Haider, chief product and supply chain officer, and Jim Mollica, chief marketing officer. In the face of the complex market environment of noise-canceling headphones, Bose said that it will continue to innovate in audio technology and use sound optimization such as spatial audio and CustomTune to differentiate from competitors. As for the price issue that everyone is very concerned about, Bose believes that users who believe in the pursuit of sound quality are willing to pay a "slightly higher" price for their products.

Use audio technology as a means of differentiation and competition

The QuietComfort series is Bose's classic noise cancelling series, and the main models currently on sale include two types of products: head-mounted and TWS. This upgrade adds the Ultra suffix to the naming to indicate that both products support the new immersive spatial audio technology.

As we all know, Bose is one of the few head players in the consumer noise cancelling headphone market. In addition to the noise cancellation technology that has been at a high-level level, in fact, the sound quality effect also has a good reputation in the consumer market.

The immersive spatial audio technology added in this upgrade allows BOSE QC series products to further grasp the control of sound (sense of position and direction) in more detail on the basis of maintaining the original sound quality level.

According to reports, Bose immersive spatial audio has two modes: "static" or "dynamic" mode. In "Static" mode, the headset will fix your aural simulation in the "Emperor Position", so you can always feel the audio in the best position. The "Dynamic" mode makes the audio "move" with the change of your position, and there is a feeling of "lingering in your ears", which is officially said to be very suitable for travel scenes.

From our actual experience in the field, the effect of "dynamic" mode is still relatively obvious, when you shake your head left and right, the sound will follow the angle and amplitude of shaking on both sides of the ear to simulate different sound effects near and far.

Technically, when listening to a recording through headphones, the sound field is compressed into the brain area between the ears. Bose Immersive Spatial Audio brings true depth to sound by virtually placing it in front of you to spatialize it. But in fact, spatial audio is not a new technology, and there are already many products on the market that have also adopted this technology.

Raza Haider explained that Bose is the only spatial audio headset product and technology in the entire market that is not limited by audio content or sources. As long as you wear Ultra products, you will feel immersed in spatial audio regardless of audio content or source.

In addition, in the interview, Raza Haider also mentioned the CustomTune intelligent in-ear sound field tuning technology, which can analyze the human ear canal and customize your sound field and sound field according to the shape of the pinna. Raza Haider said that these two technologies are currently the main differentiators for Bose from other brands in the market.

It is believed that users are willing to pay for Bose's higher-end prices

Since Apple launched AirPods Pro in 19, wireless headphones with active noise cancellation have gradually become mainstream in the market. According to market research agency QYResearch, the global noise-canceling headphone market was worth $2.8 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $7.5 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 13.6%.

Looking at the domestic market, in addition to Bose, Sony, Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, Rambler and other veteran players, Apple's AirPods Pro has driven a series of new entrants such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and OV into the game. Incomplete statistics, the number of large and small brands is nearly 100, and the price ranges from 100 yuan to thousands of yuan, or even 10,000 yuan, and the market has been in a state of chaos for a long time.

In such a noisy domestic market environment, for many manufacturers, price must be one of the "killer features", but Bose's advantages in this regard are not obvious. From the perspective of the new machine released this time, the price of QuietComfort noise canceling earphone Ultra is 3599 yuan, and the price of QuietComfort noise canceling earbuds Ultra is 2299 yuan. Friends familiar with Bose's product line found that the pricing of the entire new product line even showed an upward trend (Bose 700 was priced at 2999 yuan, but the QC Ultra headphones used to replace it were raised to 3599 yuan).

Bose has its own views on this, Raza Haider said that Bose does consider a variety of different price segments when building product lines, for example, products with Ultra suffixes represent relatively high-end (products), and the price without this suffix will be relatively affordable.

But he also believes that users who are interested in sound quality are willing to pay "a little bit higher" for Bose's products. "Our target audience is people who care deeply about the sound experience, so they're also very willing to pay for the best listening experience." Raza Haider said.

At the same time, Bose also talked about some views on the Chinese market, Bose believes that one of the characteristics of the Chinese market is that consumers prefer high-end experience, not just focus on a certain function. For example, consumers in the Chinese market pay more attention to personalization, color choices diversification, etc., Bose has launched a limited edition moonlight sapphire blue color scheme of QuietComfort Noise Cancelling Earbuds Ultra and QuietComfort Noise Cancelling Headphones specifically for the Chinese market.

Jim Mollica, who is in charge of marketing, also said in an interview that Bose will not only find suitable partners according to some characteristics of Chinese culture, such as the new national trend electronic music artist Anti-Genera and young cello artist Li La, but also hopes to have more opportunities to cooperate with more new energy vehicle manufacturers in China.