Apple is reportedly seeing continued growth in its AirTag sales, with respected industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo forecasting on Sunday that shipments for the item trackers could hit 35 million units by the end of 2022, up from an expected 20 million in 2021.
In a tweet shared over the weekend in which the analyst shares his shipping estimates for the trackers, Kuo has noted that if popularity continues, he expects Apple to release a second generation of the trackers, though this seems to be more of a prediction rather than knowledge of any future plans.
Priced at $29, the affordable tracker is equipped with the Apple-designed U1 chip using Ultra Wideband technology, enabling Precision Finding, a feature which, as a user moves, fuses input from the camera, ARKit, accelerometer, and gyroscope, to guide them to their AirTag using a combination of sound, haptics, and visual feedback.
Apple’s AirTag has been at the center of many complaints by privacy advocates and law enforcement agencies around the world, despite not necessarily posing any greater risk to privacy compared to other similar trackers, such as those from the likes of Tile.
Apple has made improvements to AirTag since its launch last year, including several firmware updates to improve anti-stalking features and a new Android app for non-iPhone users to identify unknown AirTags travelling with them, although the future for the small trackers is currently unknown.