Analyst Tears Up New Apple AirPods to Prove Their Power Source

(Bloomberg) -- A Commerzbank AG analyst has gone to great lengths to prove that Apple Inc.’s latest AirPods Pro earbuds are powered by batteries made by German manufacturer Varta AG.

Stephan Klepp visited his local Apple store and bought a pair of the $249 earphones, before dismantling them to find a Varta lithium-ion micro-battery inside, he wrote in a note.

“Overall, our tear-down puts the speculation around Apple ultimately to rest,” Klepp said in his report, which included pictures of the dissected device and its power source.

Varta and Apple declined to comment.

Varta shares have risen to the highest since being re-listed in 2017 on speculation that Apple, the market leader for wireless earbud headphones, may be behind numerous capacity increases announced by the German manufacturer. To date, neither company has confirmed the relationship.

Klepp has a buy recommendation on Varta, whose shares rose 1.8% in late Frankfurt trading, extending gains after soaring more than 7% in each of the previous two sessions.

To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Schaefer at dschaefer36@bloomberg.net, Paul Jarvis

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