In this study, the exciton binding energies of AIN are calculated by the anisotropic effective mass theory, which considers the strong electron-hole exchange and Frohlich-type exciton-phonon interactions. Our calculated results are in good agreement with recent experimental results, indicating that the electron-hole exchange and exciton-phonon interactions play essential roles in describing the excitonic structure of AIN. We estimate that the exciton binding energies of AIN are 53.7 and 67.3 meV, for the spin-singlet and the spin-triplet states, respectively. In addition, a universal correlation has been found in compound semiconductors including AIN, where the effect of the electron-hole exchange and Frohlich-type exciton-phonon interactions almost compensates each other on the binding energy of a spin-singlet exciton. (C) 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics