The very first presentation we attended was the “State of the CE Industry Address” which was given by Sean Wargo who is the Director of Industry Analysis for CEA. Sean had a Powerpoint slideshow filled with statistics and charts on growth, trends, etc. and gave his take on things. Shawn Dubravac, a CFA for the CEA gave a brief analysis of the economic side of things. The bottom line was that the consumer electronics industry is alive and well, but then you probably knew that. Read on for some interesting stats on things like sales, growth and % breakdowns.
Shawn noted that despite a slowdown across all industries, the CE industry is still looking at growth, and that a higher percentage of consumer’s budgets are going to CE. This is partially reflectd in the fact that the average household has 25 electronics products in 2005. Compare this with 1.3 in 1975, or even 13.5 just 10 years prior in 1995.
Interesting data points in the US (since CEA is a US trade association):
- % Growth (in $ sold) over the prior year: 10% in 2005 ($128.9B), 13.1% in 2006 ($145.7B)
- Forecast for 2007: $155.2B
- Fastest growing products: LCD TVs (160% up in 2006), Portable Navigation (up 154%), DVD Recorders (up 132%)
- Plasma TVs came down 40% in price in 2006.
- Flat panels are outselling all other types combined
- The shift to HDTV is well under way, with the forecast in 2007 for HDTV units to sell just as many units as standard TV sets.
- 40% of households have a home network in 2006
- 25% of households have a wireless home network in 2006
- Over 80% of households have at least 1 cell phone
- Forecast 41M MP3 players to sell in 2007. Only 500,000 sold in 2000.
- 120M wireless handsets sold in 2006. 100M in 2005
- Laptops are now outselling desktop computers
- IPTV is starting to emerge: 6M households worldwide in 2006. Forecast of 35M in 2010.
Home Theater market in 2005: $8B (includes furntiture, installation, etc.)
Sean noted that services are become more important; installation, post installation add-ons/maintenance, warranties, and content are high-margin products that go beyond the tangible hardware and software. Disruptive distribution of content is all the rage. iTunes, Vongo, and Bebo are just examples of this, and will continue to grow. In closing, Sean wondered what the “next big thing” would be. We personally think that “content delivery” is where it’s at – just look at TiVo, Sling, portable entertainment on wireless devices, and content services like MovieLink, CinemaNow, Satellite Radio, and many more exist now when in the past, the choices of cable TV, video rentals, and FM radio about summed up your ‘choices’.