What we are seeing is the start of a major disruption of the market. This is happening due to a confluence of events:
‘Baby Boomers’ are becoming the major client for HA - Many of these people are technology savvy, have high quality expectations, and demand and can afford the best.
The HA manufacturers have been just ‘cashing their checks’ for a while. There is really little to no innovation happening - The technology they are using is 10+ years old - by comparison look at your cell phone and how it has changed in the last 10-15 years
The FDA has opened the market to make entry by deep pocket giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, even Bose to explore.
What might suffer is the individual care that people are getting, but that also is not certain.
I am certain that in 5 years this will be a very different landscape.
Ray