Consumer Electronics Market to Cash In This Holiday Season
By Colleen Taylor -- EDN, October 17, 2006
Cash registers will be ringing along with sleigh bells in record amounts this winter—and the consumer electronics (CE) industry will reap much of the benefits, according to the latest study by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).
CE gifts will account for a quarter of all gifts with revenues reaching $21 billion this holiday season, compared to $17 billion, or 21 percent, in 2005, CEA reported.
"The holiday outlook for our industry is a merry one," Sean Wargo, CEA's director of industry analysis, said in a statement. "Consumers' confidence in the economy is on the rise and the CE industry will benefit."
CEA's survey tracked what consumer electronics consumers want the most and what they are mostly likely to give this holiday season. For the second year in a row, MP3 players topped the "wish lists" for adults. The rest of the top 10 list included: all types of DVD players/recorders, digital cameras, laptops and PCs, televisions, video game systems, cellular phones, camcorders and HDTV. MP3 players also reigned supreme in the tech-savvy teen market, topping the wish lists of participants aged 12 to 17. Rounding out the rest of the top three CE wish list items for teens were video game consoles and computers.
Adults and teens will certainly have a bevy of choices for fulfilling holiday MP3 player wishes. Along with new models of Apple Computer's high-flying iPod, newly minted digital music players from Sony, Sandisk and Microsoft are lobbying hard for a place in consumer's stockings this holiday season.
According to the survey, overall household spending for the holidays, factoring in gifts, decorations, food, travel and other assorted holiday expenses, will be up 14 percent this year to $1,625. Of that, half will be spent on gifts -- a 27 percent increase compared to last year -- and consumers will spend $195 on average for CE gifts, CEA said.
"The upgrade cycle is driving a lot of this growth. Lured in by the declining prices on many new digital products, consumers are spending more for consumer electronics on average than they have in the past," Wargo continued. "An example of this is the MP3 player versus the portable CD player. The initial price for an MP3 player is higher than the initial price five or 10 years ago for a portable CD player."
Topping the "gift list," or what consumers actually plan to buy, this holiday season are digital cameras, cellular phones, MP3 players, video game consoles, portable CD players, carrying cases, cordless phones, additional memory for digital cameras, laptops and clock radios.
