Innovation drives growth in technical goods

27 August 2008
International, Company News

GfK publishes new worldwide sales figures

The worldwide markets for technical goods are continuing to expand, with consumer spending on audio, video, photographic, IT and telecommunications hardware forecast to rise by 9% to EUR 462 billion (USD 680 billion) this year. These are the findings of a continuous survey carried out by GfK Retail and Technology in 73 countries and published at the 2008 Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin.

Asia is the fastest-growing region, with 17% sales growth being driven primarily by expansion in China. The other main growth centers are the remaining three BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia and India. The Western European and North American markets are expected to achieve 2% and 5% growth respectively.

The three most important product categories are expanding strongly, with mobile phone sales increasing by 14% a year in value terms, TVs by 11% and consumer PCs by 10%. In each of these categories, which together make up some 65% of the total market, growth is being driven by innovation in the form of products such as smartphones and flatscreen TVs, and by the continued shift from desktop PCs to notebooks.

GfK IFA press releases on international Consumer Electronics, Information Technology, Telecommunication and Imaging markets are available here for download in both English and German.

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GfK Retail and Technology, www.gfkrt.com