Category: Consumer electronics

The number of EU households with digital terrestrial television (DTT) is set to reach nearly 55 million by 2009, representing 55% of all digital households in the union and 30% of all TV households, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Furthermore, whilst none of the ten new member states have yet launched DTT services, most are expected to begin transmissions within the next five years, contributing more than 5 million DTT households by the end of the decade.

Between January and May, the average selling price of a DVD player exported out of the Guangdong province came to $40.80, leaving just about $1 in profit margins for the manufacturers. The province accounts for 84.2% of China’s exports of DVD players and exported 34.5 million of the players during the January to May period.

The price of 42-inch enhanced definition plasma TVs dropped $86 from April, while 32-inch direct view TV prices fell $52. Portable DVD players cost $30 less compared to the previous month, and 15-inch notebooks declined $65. The monthly pricing monitor of NPD is based on 27 product categories, including televisions, computers, cameras and media players. In May, retail prices for goods in this basket dropped another 3.1%, the sharpest sequential fall since November. In April, the fall was 2%. The overall value of the products is now pegged at $12,362, which is more than $1,000 lower than what it was at the beginning of the year, and about $2,600 lower than in May 2003. This amounts to a decline of 17.4% over the past year. Previously the prices have gone down by 3%.

Global unit sales for all (not just digital) TVs will grow from 170 mln in 2003 to 196 mln in 2008, as consumers begin to replace their analog sets. This represents approximately $61 bln in 2003, growing to $86 bln in 2008. Further, with currently less than 20% of U.S. DTV-owning households watching actual HD content year 7.1% of global TV shipments were digital; this year IDC expects the percentage will reach higher than 12% to 60% by 2008.

Exactly 72% of US adults ages 18 and older display some level of interest in a product that would connect their home entertainment system to the Internet, reports Ipsos-Insight. The researchers decided to skip the industry terms media hubs and media centers sticking to their own “digital den” definition. So 49% are somewhat interested, while 32% are very interested. As for the familiarity, 31% are somewhat familiar and 5% of US adults are very familiar.

In the past 3 months consumer electronics prices fell 2%. Researcher NPD Group tracks the prices of 27 products, and compared to the price levels in March, 19 of them got cheaper. Plasma and rear-projection TV prices dropped $40 per item, DVD recorder prices went down by 9.9% and personal CD players lost 7.2% of their March price. PC desktops are now cheaper by 5%.

Some 13% of people surveyed by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence said they were likely to purchase a DVD recorder in the next 12 months.

Survey research conducted by IDC and sponsored by a group of leading computer and consumer electronics companies forecasts that consumers will purchase some 11 million DVD burners for their home PCs over the next 18 months.

IDC says worldwide unit shipments of the DVRs will climb to more than 28 million in 2008, a compound annual growth rate of 46.9% between 2003 and 2008. That is spurred in large part by cable and satellite TV providers investing heavily in DVR-enabled set-top boxes in the United States, IDC said.

An explosive demand for LCD screens for televisions is forecast to lead to a near doubling of the world’s LCD market to $42 billion by 2007, technology research group IDC said. In 2004 the total LCD panel market is expected to grow over 50% to about $37 billion from $24 billion in 2003 as TVs as thin as a picture frame prove as popular as flat computer screens.

Worldwide shipments of LCD TVs surged to 1.3 million units in Q4 2003, up 23% from Q3, according to from iSuppli/Stanford Resources. The market research firm said plasma TV shipments rose 5% QTQ to 358,449 units, and overall TV set shipments hit 44.7 million units, up 12% from Q3. Most televisions shipped in the quarter were traditional CRT (cathode-ray tube) models.

Sales of integrated Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) will grow from 930,000 in 2002 to nearly 28 million by 2008, according to Strategy Analytics. Starting from 2002, the market will grow at an average annual growth rate of 59% through 2008, when there will be a total of 71.5 million integrated DVR users.

Strategy Analytics reports that 70,000 high-definition TV (HDTV)-capable displays were purchased in 2003 in Europe. The research firm expects that demand for these sets will grow over the coming years, with 17.4 million European households owning HDTV-capable TV sets in 2008. Strategy projects that 2.6 million – or roughly 15% of all HDTV-capable households, as extrapolated by eMarketer – will actually have HDTV.

Satellite customers are almost twice as likely as cable customers to own personal video recorders (PVRs), such as Tivo and ReplayTV, according to a survey conducted in January by Ipsos-Insight. Ipsos-Insight interviewed 973 adults from 16 to 19 January via telephone, from a nationally representative sample of 1,000 US adults ages 18 and older. It found that for the overall US population, the penetration rate for DVRs is 5.8%. Cable subscribers came in slightly below this rate at 5.6%, and satellite subscribers high above it at 11.4%.

DVD recorders are expected to slowly take over for DVD players, in standalone products as well as in combination products such as DVD+VCR, DVD+HTiB, and TV+DVD, reports In-Stat/MDR/ In 2004, the first DVD recorder combination products are entering the market. There are several DVD recorder+VCR and Home Theater in a Box (HTiB)+DVD recorder systems scheduled to ship in 2004. The high-tech market research firm finds that in 2003 alone, DVD recorder unit shipments increased over 200%, as more manufacturers entered the market and the prices declined. As more products come on to market, over 50 million DVD recorders are expected to ship worldwide in 2007.

“However, there is still a lot of life in the DVD player market,” says Michelle Abraham, a Senior Analyst with In-Stat/MDR. “Automotive DVD systems and portable DVD players are expected to grow over 30% annually for the next five years. In addition, while households in Europe, North America, and Japan will convert to DVD recorders, markets like China will continue to consume DVD players.” DVD player unit shipments in 2003 were 98 million units and will top 100 million in 2004. The total market will then begin its decline in 2005, though the portable and automotive segments will still continue to grow.

In-Stat/MDR also reports that:

• DVD players are commonly available in Europe and North America for less than $50. By 2007, prices will be under $30 on a regular basis.
• DVD recorder prices will drop below $199 for the holidays in 2004. Besides hard drives, step-up features on DVD recorders will include Electronic Program Guides (EPGs), and network connections in 2004, with DTV tuners and DVD-Audio and SACD playback added in 2005.
• Blue laser player/recorders will become mainstream products, but not before 2008. The two competing blue laser formats will finalize their read-only formats in 2004, so In-Stat/MDR expects more product introductions in 2005.

Patterns of consumer electronics sales in the United States. Sales are shown in millions of dollars.

Type of device	1990	1995	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Cordless telephones	842	1,141	1,672	1,745	1,808	1,307	1,358
Corded telephones	638	557	515	489	471	393	294
Cellular telephones	1,133	2,574	5,940	6,000	6,066	8,995	8,651
Home computers	4,187	12,600	15,950	16,640	16,390	16,400	12,960
Computer printers	(NA)	2,430	3,900	4,188	4,500	5,116	5,245
Computer software	971	2,500	3,450	3,930	4,480	5,062	5,771
Home fax machines	920	919	1,137	647	455	387	349
Digital cameras	(NA)	(NA)	483	519	1,209	1,823	1,972
Standard color TV	6,197	6,798	6,023	6,122	6,199	6,140	5,130
TV/VCR combos	178	723	684	832	1,014	969	790
VCR decks	2,439	2,767	2,618	2,409	2,333	1,861	1,058
Home satellites	421	1,265	726	733	957	1,102	921
DVD players	(NA)	(NA)	171	421	1,099	1,713	2,697
Video game hardware	975	1,500	1,650	1,980	2,250	2,700	3,250
Video game software	2,400	3,000	3,900	4,480	5,100	5,850	6,725
Blank audio cassettes	376	334	281	248	208	162	106
Blank videotapes	948	708	695	647	590	567	604
Blank computer media	314	373	500	700	900	1,200	1,550

Over 70% of households with broadband lines picked out consumer electronics brands over their PC counterparts, in Parks Associates’ Broadband Networked Households project. Over a half of them (51%) picked Sony as their brand of choice for any device, which would store and distribute content to networked devices within the home.

Ipsos-Insight reports that 70% of US adults know what digital video recorders (DVRs) and 48% are familiar with the popular brand of DVR, TiVo. Specifically, notes Ipsos, the awareness of DVRs is highest among satellite TV subscribers – 76% say they are familiar with DVRs. Interestingly, while 63% of US adults think that DVRs are easy to use and 32% think the price of DVRs is reasonable.

The worldwide digital radio
market, both satellite and terrestrial, will grow to over 19 million
unit shipments in 2007, reports In-Stat/MDR. The
high-tech market research firm believes that new content (stations that
only exist in digital) and data services will drive consumer demand for
radios. These factors are already at work in the digital satellite radio
arena in the US and the digital terrestrial market in the UK.

Several hundred million analog radios are sold worldwide each
year, in the form of stereo receivers, CD boom boxes, portable devices,
alarm clocks, and car stereo systems. Reductions in the cost of digital
tuners will convert the more expensive of the analog radios to digital
by the end of 2007.

The Big Research January survey polled over 9,500 consumers. Of those, 84% said they considered plasma televisions ‘hot’ in 2004, while 80% said the same about picture cell phones. In the same sample, shopping at discount stores was also seen as ‘hot’ by 80% of respondents, while 67% said so about shopping at dollar stores. Of those surveyed who labeled plasma televisions and picture cell phones as ‘hot,’ 28% shop most often for electronics at Best Buy and 23% do so at WalMart. Circuit City ranked third among those buyers at 10%.

Low carbohydrate diets were another ‘hot’ item among consumers; 72% of consumers thought so, while 28% disagreed. But the recent trend toward brightly colored merchandise appears to be waning. Brightly colored apparel was seen as ‘hot’ by 53% of those surveyed; 47% disagreed. Brightly colored housewares had 49% of the votes for ‘hot’ while 51% said no.

According to new research from IDC, dropping price points and growing interest in high-definition television will drive flat-panel TV display shipments to 50 million units in 2007. Sprouting from meager beginnings at the start of this century, flat-panel TVs accounted for just 0.5% of the worldwide TV market in 2000. As the market continues to accelerate, flat TVs will quickly account for 27% of the worldwide market by 2007. Adoption rates in the U.S. will be even more aggressive.

Research firm TrendFocus sees hard drive shipments to consumer electronics makers soaring to 55 million units in 2006 from an estimated 17 million this year. Blazing a trail for the market is Japan’s Toshiba, which provides small drives for Apple Computer’s hugely popular iPod music player. Toshiba controls 98% of the market for the 1.8 inch-diameter drives used in the iPod, which can pack up to 10,000 songs in a device the size of a deck of cards, and its small drives are also appearing in a miniature video camera that can record up to two hours of high-definition video.

Informa Media Group estimates that there will be 30.7 million digital TV households in Europe this year, and projects that the UK will claim the greatest share of this market with over 10.8 million. Informa projects over 60 million more households will gain digital TV in the region over the coming years to hit 97.1 million digital TV households by the end of 2010. Informa notes that by 2010, over 97 million digital TV households in Europe will translate into 41% of all TV households in the area with digital TV. Informa notes that in the UK, 66% of TV households will be digital while 81% of TV households in Sweden, 70% of TV households in Switzerland and 60% of TV households in the Netherlands will be digital.

The Motion Picture Association of America, however, estimates that about 90% of films on peer-to-peer networks originated from camcorder versions of films, and is working to enact laws that will penalize those who surreptitiously record films in movie theaters.

Nomura Securities estimates the global DVD recorder market will reach 500 billion yen ($4.6 billion) this year, while Pioneer estimates global demand to more than double next year to 8.24 million units from a forecast for 3.6 million units this year. Market leader Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd., maker of the Panasonic brand, Pioneer and Toshiba Corp gained an early advantage, but competitors at home and abroad are aggressively trying to close the gap with new products.