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Fuzzy Logic

US adults spend $1200 on gadgets, gizmos and tech each year

Written by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Tuesday, 01 May 2007

The Consumer Electronics Association has released a study showing that US adults are seemingly happy to whip out the credit card to own the latest technologies, spending around $1200 per year on the goodness of gadgetry.

In what must be bringing joy to the hearts of US, European, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese technology companies, the US CEA (Consumer Electronics Association - the company behind the massively popular and successful ‘Consumer Electronics Show’ in Las Vegas each year) says that US adults spend around $1200 per year on the latest technologies.

This information comes from the “9th Annual Household and Teen CE Ownership and Market Potential Study”, which also reveals the “most owned CE products and tracks the growth rates of popular product categories”, a report that is free to CEA member companies, and available to anyone else from www.ebrain.org for a cost of US $999.

Somewhat predictably, given their enormously popularity worldwide, the report tells us that the top five growth sectors are “digital video recorders (DVRs), network routers or hubs, MP3 players, cable modems and digital cameras”.

Digital cameras and mp3 players are enormously popular items globally, cable modems are essentially for broadband access through cable networks which are everywhere in the US, network routers and hubs allow consumers to network multiple computers together to share a broadband Internet connection, and digital video recorders, such as ‘TiVo’ and other devices, have long been mega-popular in the US where hundreds of channels are the norm for most cable TV viewers over there.

CEA Senior Research Analyst Elena Caudle says that: “It’s interesting to note here that two of the fastest movers and shakers in the CE industry are devices that enable home networking. The other three products enable consumers to create, shift or transport digital content. As consumers continue to embrace digital technology this new convergence will continue to change the way Americans live, work and play.”

According to the report, “DVR ownership and network/routers in U.S. households grew eight percentage points since 2006 to 25 and 30 percent respectively. Thirty-two percent of households now own an MP3 player, up seven percentage points since last year. Cable modem ownership grew six percentage points and digital camera ownership rose to 62 percent of all U.S. households”.

As the transition to HDTV is underway in the US, with the analog switch-off happening in early 2009, it should come as no surprise that one of the other categories with “significant growth” include HDTV with penetration reaching a quarter of U.S. homes.

Cell phones are naturally also big news, with more than three-quarters of U.S homes having at least one cell phone and estimates of 178.5 million wireless phones in use.

DVD players are also effectively ubiquitous with 84% household penetration, surpassing VCRs, which is said to partially be because of the availability of portable DVD players.

In addition to identifying top growth categories, the study also reveals the five most owned products beginning with the television (92 percent), DVD player or recorder, VCR (82 percent), cordless phone (82 percent) and the cellular phone (76 percent).

“Many of the top owned products have enjoyed mass market saturation for years and will likely see growth based on upgrade and replacement sales. Some of the more intriguing categories are those that still occupy niche markets, such as mobile CE devices like GPS systems and satellite radio, which have seen healthy growth in the past few years.” said Caudle.

Seemingly not mentioned in the CEA press release is the games console market, although the final report likely covers this every popular sector.

The study also sets out the spending habits of consumers by age demographics. While adults spend $1,200 annually on CE products, teens spend $350 each year which is about half of their total annual discretionary income.

Adults with children and teens spend up to $500 more on CE purchases than the national average.“This is excellent news for the industry as children and teens who currently influence household CE purchase decisions grow up to become the next generation’s early adopters,” said Caudle.

9th Annual Household and Teen CE Ownership and Market Potential (April 2007) was conducted in February 2007. It was designed and formulated by CEA Market Research, the most comprehensive source of sales data, forecasts, consumer research and historical trends for the consumer electronics industry. {moscomment}