Consumer electronics devices market projected to be worth $293.9 billion by 2016

MONTREAL, CANADA: ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS, the electronics industry market research and knowledge network, announced the availability of a new report entitled "United States Consumer Electronics Report".

The United States Consumer Electronics Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, electronics associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on United States's consumer electronics industry.

The US consumer electronics devices market, defined as the addressable market for computing devices, mobile handsets and AV products, is projected to be worth around $239.4 billion in 2011. This is expected to increase to $293.9 billion by 2016 at a CAGR of 4.1 percent, driven by premium TV sets, smartphones and notebooks.

In 2011, sales of consumer electronics products such as smartphones and LED-backlit TV sets grew strongly as the recovery gathered traction. However, falling average prices in many product categories placed revenues and margins under pressure, with the average price of a LCD TV set in the US market now below $600, while the average price of smartphones continues to fall as new manufacturers enter the market with lower priced products.

Mature markets in many segments mean vendors will continue to rely on product innovation to drive growth. Surveys suggest that sales of 3D TV sets and smartphones could benefit from recovering consumer confidence, but, if oil prices or interest rates pick up dramatically, it would be bad news for disposable household income.

Computers
Analysts forecast US PC hardware sales of $144.1 billion in 2011. CAGR for the 2012-2016 period will be about 3.4 percent, a little higher than previous expectations as multimedia and entertainment notebooks remain buoyant. US PC sales grew strongly in 2010, boosted by a revival of the business market. Researchers project the market is on course for total PC sales of around 86 million in 2011.

Notebooks remain the largest product category but face competition from the smartphones of RIM, Apple, HTC and other vendors as well as tablet notebooks, spearheaded by Apple’s iPad. The US domestic video, audio and gaming device market is projected at $65 billion in 2011.

Video applications will account for around 80 percent of demand during the 2012-2016 forecast period, with growth areas linked to new technologies such as LED TV sets, 3D TV and Blu-ray. Around twothirds of US households now have flatscreen TV sets, which will require manufacturers to introduce new features to encourage continued upgrades. Vendors will focus on product innovation, with drivers including improved display quality and wider screens, as well as features such as internet connectivity.

Mobile handsets
Total US market handset sales are expected to grow to around 172 million units in 2016. With an increasingly saturated US market, handset revenues will be driven by emerging product areas such as smartphones, touchscreen phones and HD camera phones.

Smartphones will be a key growth area and are forecast to account for more than 50 percent of the US market handset sales for the first time in 2011, with Android models the fastest growing handset market segment and accounting for the largest proportion of sales in 2011. As new long-term evolution (LTE) networks began to come online, this should boost replacement handset purchases.