San Francisco, Dec 21 (IANS): Apple sold $6 billion worth of AirPods this year and is set to rake in $15 billion in revenue from the true wireless hearables in 2020, according to the famed Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

Apple could sell as many as 85 million AirPods next year, making AirPods the company's third-largest business after iPhones and ipads by 2021, Sacconaghi said in a note published on Friday.

However, reports CNBC, the AirPod's run may be short-lived.

"Given AirPods' extraordinarily steep adoption curve and rapid saturation of the iPhone installed base, we see a dramatic deceleration in AirPods revenue growth by 2021 or 22, to single digit growth rates or possibly lower," said Sacconaghi.

Apple recently doubled its monthly AirPods Pro production from one million to two million units per month.

The size of the global market for true wireless hearables is expected to touch 120 million units this year and 230 million units in 2020, growing 90 per cent year on year (YoY), according to Counterpoint Research.

Apple is expected to show a significant turnaround in Q4 this year fuelled by AirPods Pro.

In 2020, Apple will maintain a strong market leadership based on its loyal customer base, with advanced product and marketing strategies in the wearables segment, says Counterpoint Research''s "Hearables Market Forecast".

The company is likely to maintain 50 per cent of the true wireless hearables market share globally in 2020.