What They Say
The GfU in Germany said that the German market for consumer electronics was up in Q1 2022 by 7.5% over last year and almost reached €12 billion.
‘Private IT’ was down 6% to €2.1 billion, while CE was up by 4.2% to around €2 billion and telecommunication products were up 16.5% to €3.5 billion.
TVs got to €900 million (+2.9%) although unit volumes fell by 10.3% to 1.3 million sets with ASPs rising to €702. Consoles were down 30% to €109 million. Audio grew.
Wearables were up 18% to €319 million with unit sales growing 1.7% to 1.6 million. Again ASPs grew by 16% to €197 as they did for smartphones to €621 (+11.8%), to mean overall value of €3.1 billion (+16.9%). Smartphone unit sales rose to around 5 million (+4.5%).
Desktop PCs, notebooks and tablets were all down by 4.6%, 5.1% and 9.7%, respectively and units were down even more. Monitors were down 5.3% in value, but 14.4% in volume with ASPs rising by 10.7%.
What We Think
I’m planning a deeper dive on the topic, but I am somewhat concerned that panel makers are planning boosts to panel capacity for IT products and yet the market is declining after the reduction in home working. Some hope that corporates might re-equip offices, but I can’t see corporates spending more on better colour, resolution and frame rates. I’m not sure where the revenue to pay for the new fabs is going to come from. (BR)
