During the first press day, the IFA organisers gave their traditional update on the market and the fair. This year there were a record number of exhibitors, 1,645, and they took floor space of 150,000 m² between them – a record amount. The gfu, which runs the show, has renamed itself as gfu Consumer and Home Electronics. The fourteen associates that are part of the gfu now are B/S/H, Miele, Astra, Canton, Grundig, Loewe, Metz, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Technicolor.
The overall consumer electronics market globally has expanded by 14% to €891 billion over the past year, but only if you measure it in the devalued €. If you look at dollars, the value was flat over the year. Most areas of the world grew, apart from Central and Eastern Europe, which was well down with the problems in Russia. Western Europe is expected to be 4% up over 2014, with other regions doing better, especially MEA which is expected to be up 27% (in €, again).
By product group, for technical products, Smartphones increased their dominance to get to 41% of revenue, with LCD TV static at 13% (over four years) and tablets at 6%. Mobile (12%) and desktop (6%) PCs, Digital still cameras (2%), and “Other” (18%) are all down.
Nearly 2 billion “Core Internet Devices” will be sold in 2015, GfK believes, with 1,358 million smartphones, 223m tablets, 180m Notebooks, 109m smart TVs and 89 million Desktop/AIO PCs.
Domestic appliances fared a bit better with growth of 4% for large appliances and 6% for small appliances.
Consumers are still willing to consider buying new products, with TVs higher on the list than might be expected from the recent sales figures. 40% of 6,000 consumers surveyed said that they would look to buy a new TV by the end of 2016.
Regional differences are important across Europe with Russia and the Ukraine massively down from last year, but with most other countries up on last year, which was a difficult one. The details can be seen in the chart below.
