Breaks the one-trillion barrier.
The global market for technical consumer goods exceeded one-trillion for the first time in 2018, a 4% increase on the previous year. Telecommunications and small domestic appliances led the sales charge, each increasing 7% followed by electronics/photo up 6%. Information technology/office equipment rose 1% but global sales for major domestic appliances fell slightly by 1%.
Analytics group GfK is expecting a 2% increase in technical consumer goods to reach around €1.03 trillion (US$1.181 trillion) in 2019, based on current results following CES 2019 in Las Vegas.
GfK technical consumer goods spokesman, Markus Kick, described the 2018 results as a real milestone for the trade and industry. “The areas of telecommunications, small domestic appliances and consumer electronics proved to be the biggest drivers of sales and we are seeing a trend toward premium products in almost all segments,” he said. Consumers are also placing more value on connectivity and convenience. Based on this trend, GfK is also expecting solid sales growth in 2019 with an increase of 2%, he said.
Consumers are increasingly going for premium products, especially in the smartphone segment, which has enabled global sales to rise by a further 7%, however this market is stagnating in quantities sold, according to GfK.
Major domestic appliances continued to be the second-largest segment despite the slight decrease in sales while there is a focus on ‘convenience’ when it comes to small domestic appliances, with battery-powered handheld vacuum cleaners particularly popular. GfK is seeing an upward trend for the global small domestic appliances market in 2019.
High-end TVs with screen sizes of at least 50-inches produced significant growth in sales with OLED TV sets continuing to increase in popularity. Headphones and portable Bluetooth speakers were significant drivers of growth on the audio market.
In the IT segment, there is demand for high-performance devices, especially in the gaming PC and gaming notebook segment. Office equipment and consumables segment recorded a positive development increasing 3%, although GfK is expects a global decrease in sales of around 3% for the IT/office equipment segment in 2019.
The photo segment was unable to break its negative trend and lost a further 5% of sales in 2018.
With a sales share of 42%, Asia-Pacific held a leading position on the technical consumer goods market in 2018, with Europe on a 25% share and North America with a 20% share.