Consumer electronics goods retailers will have little reason to celebrate the latest research firm GfK with the firm reporting that sales of technical consumer goods – everything from notebooks to flat-screen TVs – fell more than $1billion during the first quarter of 2010.
The withdrawl of the Rudd Government’s stimulus package and four rate rises by the Reserve Bank have combined to drop retail sales from a peak of $5.61billion in the fourth quarter of 2009 to $4.6billion during the first quarter of 2010, a fall of $1.01billion. The corresponding fall from Q4, 2008 to Q1, 2009 – the usual post-Christmas slowdown – was from $5.4billion to $4.68billion, a drop of $720million.
On a year-by-year basis, Consumer Electronics (2.2%), Photo (8.5%), Major Domestic Applications (3.2%) and Small Domestic Appliances (11.5%) all saw falls in 2010 over 2009 Q1 figures. Information Technology (5.6%), Telecommunications (3.9%) and Office equipment/Consumables (1.7%) saw gains over the same period.
Taken as a whole, the technical consumer goods market shrank 1.6% year-on-year for the first quarter of 2010.
However, despite the gloom there was still significant good news if you were in the right markets:
* Smartphone sales generated an increase of 149% in dollars spent. Traditional mobile phone sales were down 45%.
* MP3 players, DVD recorders and audio systems are on the outer with consumers with all three seeing double-digit declines.
* Unsurprisingly with the nation in the grip of serial cooking shows on TV, the only major domestic appliance category to see sales growth was cooking. Fridges, washing machines and dishwashers all experienced declines.
* Air-conditioning and fans saw a sigificant 20% fall in sales
And with the analog switch off about to begin in regional Victoria, sales of digital set-top-boxes have grown 38%.