Skip to main content

UK Consumer Electronics Market Outlook

Futuresource Consulting provided insight into where the UK Consumer Electronics market is going, and what movements we should expect to see by the upcoming winter holiday season.

Consumer appetite for High Definition TV (HDTV) shows no signs of slowing, with the 2010 football World Cup and 2012 London Olympics expected to help drive interest across Europe. Flat panel sales are currently driven by people replacing their CRT TV sets, and also by demand for smaller screen sizes as second and third displays are purchased for use in the kitchen or bedroom.

The UK remains the lead market in Europe, with shipments last year reaching 8.8 million units, and Futuresource forecasts show the UK market will grow to 9.6 million units in 2009. However, price drops during the latter half of 2008 and into 2009 have had a negative impact on TV vendors, with overall TV revenues expected to fall this year.

LCD has captured more than 90 percent of flat panel sales, and future growth will be driven by value-added features such as LED, high screen refresh rates, ultra-thin screen technologies and 3D, as well as continued migration to larger screen sizes. Plasma technology will continue to lose share to LCD, but will remain significant in screen sizes of 50 inches and above.

All flat panel HDTVs are capable of handling any HD input and scaling it appropriately, whether the screen resolution is 720 or 1080. However, the falling price premium for 1080p displays and the increasing amount of content available in Full HD from Blu-ray players and PS3 games consoles is driving a clear path towards 1080p screen adoption.

From a market of negligible size in 2007, the Netbook personal computer reached nearly six million units across Europe in 2008, and in doing so exposed a gap in the market for Notebooks that are configured primarily for internet usage and very little else.

In the UK, Netbooks accounted for over one in ten sales of the UK PC market last year and Futuresource expects this trend to continue into 2009, as more and more vendors move into the low cost computing category.

The UK market is expected to reach close to 2.5 million units this year, representing year-on-year growth of more than 70 percent, with a large segment of the market being attracted by newer, cheaper netbooks offering increased functionality.

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Talent Demand Exceeds Supply in Asia-Pac

Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul

How Cloud Fuels Digital Business Transformation

Across the globe, many CEOs invested in initiatives to expand their digital offerings. User experience enhancements that are enabled by business technology were a priority in many industries. Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 21.7 percent to a total of $597.3 billion in 2023 -- that's up from $491 billion in 2022, according to the latest market study by Gartner. Cloud computing is driving the next phase of digital transformation, as organizations pursue disruption through technologies like generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web3, and enterprise Metaverse. Public Cloud Computing Market Development "Hyperscale cloud providers are driving the cloud agenda," said Sid Nag, vice president at Gartner . Organizations view cloud computing as a highly strategic platform for digital transformation initiatives, which requires providers to offer new capabilities as the competition for digital business escalates. "For example, generativ

Mobile Device Market Still Awaiting Recovery

The mobile devices market has experienced three years of unpredictable demand. The global pandemic, geopolitical pressures, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic headwinds have hindered the sector's consistent growth potential. This extremely challenging environment has dramatically affected both demand and supply chains. It has led to subsequent inflationary pressures, leading to a worsening global cost of living crisis suppressing growth and confidence in the sector. In tandem, mobile device industry stakeholders have become more cautious triggering market uncertainties. Mobile Device Market Development Operating under such a backdrop, the development of mobile device ecosystems and vendor landscapes have been impacted severely. Many of these market pressures persisted throughout 2022 and now into 2023, borne chiefly by the smartphone market. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, worldwide smartphone shipments in 2022 declined 9.6 percent Year-over-Year