The German home electronics moved up 0.3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2018, according to GFU which has published its Hemix report. In the months from January to March 2018, a turnover of €10.1 billion was achieved.
With sales of €6.6 billion, the electronics division also remained flat in the first quarter of 2018. Private telecommunications recorded a revenue growth of 10.7% to almost €2.8 billion. The consumer electronics segments declined 9.6%, dropped to €2.2 billion euros, while privately used IT products fell 1.9% to €1.6 billion
Sales of €1 billion were achieved with televisions in the first quarter of 2018, a decline of 8.4%. The number of units sold declined by 14.3% to 1.6 million, while the average price of TVs sold rose by 6.9% to €635. The decline in the number of units is mainly due to high sales figures in the first quarter of 2017 caused by the conversion to DVB-T2 HD. This also applies to the set-top boxes, which saw a 51% decline in sales.
In the home audio segment, sales increased by 2.1% to €289 million, mainly from loudspeaker boxes, which generated revenue growth of 8% to €122 million in the first quarter of 2018. The AV accessories product division continued its growth course with a 12.7% increase in sales, to €214 million.
Privately used telecommunications, smartphones and core wearables provided growth compared to the same period the previous year. With a volume of just under 5.4 million units, a shipment growth of 0.4%, €2.5 billion was generated with smartphones, representing a revenue growth of 11.3%. The average price of smartphones sold increased by 10.9% to €472. Core wearables contributed 9.5% to €138 million, with sales of 862,000 units sold, a 2.1% increase.
Despite sales revenue growth for desktop PCs (5.4%), tablet PCs (4.9%) and monitors (9.7%), the decline in sales of privately used IT products could not be stopped. Volumes were up by 7.7% for monitors and desktops by 4.7% and ASPs by 1.6% and 3.4%, respectively. However, notebooks were down 9.1% in volume and 6.0% in value. Tablets dropped in volume by 6.1%, but an 11.7% boost in ASPs because of switches to higher models meant that value rose.
Projectors were down 12% in volume and 11.1% in value and both DVD players (-6%) and Blu-ray Players (-14.6%) dropped in volume.
The household electrical appliances segments showed different developments — major electric appliances posted a 1% decline in sales, to €2.2 billion, while small electrical appliances achieved an increase in sales of 4.5%, to almost €1.3 billion.
For the current year, market researchers forecast positive development for the overall market.
Click HEMIX_Q1_2018.pdf to download the data file (in German)
