2010 Allows Consumer Electronics Market to Recover

It seems that, according to the most recent data gathered by iSupply, now part of IHS, consumer demand was strong enough in 2010 to allow the consumer electronics market to rebound after the difficult 2008-2009 period.

As the research firm has it, the CE market in 2010 is projected to grow by 6.2% compared to 2009, from US$320.7 billion to US$340.4 billion.

This growth comes after 2009's rather disappointing decrease of 4.4% and will be followed by a steady climb over the next four years.

LCD TVs and Blu-ray players are said to have performed the best out of all consumer electronics segments.

Over 178 million LCD TVs will be shipped, even more than the previously projected 177 million, while Blu-ray players will amount to 16.4 million.

These figures correspond to very solid increases of 40% and a full 82.2%, respectively.

"As shown in the early results from Black Friday, consumer confidence levels in 2010 are higher in all regions of the world than they were in 2009, and buyers are more inclined to acquire new devices or upgrade old electronics equipment," said Jordan Selburn, principal analyst for consumer platforms at iSuppli.

iSupply is quite optimistic about the following years, but there are, of course, a few problems that might arise.

"Potential trouble could lie ahead, especially if the fragile economic recovery unspools and consumers decide to withhold precious spending dollars," Selburn said.

"Furthermore, inventories of consumer goods are beginning to accumulate. And although overall unit shipments for electronic devices will keep growing in the years ahead, the continual price erosion that is a hallmark of the consumer market will lead to slowing revenue increases after 2012," the principal analyst explained.

PMPs were one of the weaker links of the CE market this year and are expected to miss initial forecasts because they lost share to cell phones with multimedia capabilities.