CES 2010: A Smaller Show

January 5, 2010

Welcome sign at the Las Vegas airport!

Here we meet again, CES, the world’s largest show in consumer electronics land.

I just arrived in sunny Las Vegas before a stop in freezing Salt Lake City. Mark will get there later.

Surprisingly, traffic is quite fluid on Las Vegas boulevard, and there seems to be no waiting at the taxis line!

Good news, as I’ll be just in time to hear the analysts of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) – the organiser of the CES show – on their view of the global consumer electronics industry for 2010 and beyond.

All the events today are held at the Venetian hotel, as well as most press conferences tomorrow. We won’t head to the show at the convention centre until Thursday, Jan 7th, when it actually opens.

However, here are some early statistiques on the show shared by the organisers:

  1. CEA expects 2,500+ exhibitors this year, versus over 2,700 in 2009;
  2. And approximately 110,000 visitors, down a bit from the 113,000 a year ago;
  3. The show is also slightly smaller with 1.4 million square feet, versus 1.7 last year;
  4. But there’s seem to be as many press and analysts, about 5,000!

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Nokia Handset Business Tumbles, Now Expects Global Mobile Market To Drop 10% In 2009

January 22, 2009
The Consumer Electronics Association hopes for a 2.1% in cell phone sales in 2009. Wishful thinking?

The Consumer Electronics Association hopes for a 2.1% in cell phone sales in 2009. Wishful thinking?

The world’s largest maker of mobile phones posted today a 69% drop in fourth-quarter profit of $751 million and a 19% revenue decline, still at over $16 billion.

During the last quarter, Nokia shipped 113.1 million handsets, down 15% over last year.

The mobile phone manufacturers are being hit hard in ’09

Competitors are not doing much better either.

Last Friday, rival handset maker Sony Ericsson posted a second-straight quarterly loss at $245 million. And Motorola also said it will report a fourth-quarter loss and slash an additional 4,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, Nokia lowered its outlook for global mobile devices sold in 2009, saying it now expects them to fall 10% compared to an earlier forecast of a 5% drop.

At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, the CEA hoped for a 2.1% sales growth in mobile phones. That might be just wishful thinking at this point.

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2009: Blu-ray Sales Will Exceed DVD Revenues In U.S. (video)

January 12, 2009
Blue-ray sales will finally take off in 2009

Blue-ray sales will finally take off in 2009

With the end of the high-definition DVD war a year ago at the Consumer Electronics Show – Sony’s Blu-ray standard won over Toshiba’s HD-DVD – Blue-ray sales are poised to take off, said the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

Since first released in June 2006, over 10 million Blu-ray players shipped, and more than 1,100 Blu-ray titles are now available in the U.S. 

For 2009, the CEA expects the sale of Blu-ray players to double at about 10 million units, representing 10% of all DVD players (standard and next generation) sold worldwide.

In the U.S., Blu-ray DVD sales will exceed standard DVD revenues, which is explained by the 5 fold price difference - at least - between the two generations of products.

Here’s a video excerpt from CEA analysts explaining the Blu-ray trend:

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U.S. Smartphone Sales To Grow 31% in 2009 (video)

January 12, 2009
mobile-phone-market-in-2009

U.S. consumers are shifting to smartphones

Mobile phones is by far the largest category – in units sold or volume – in the consumer electronics market. 

For the first time, in 2007, there were more than 1 billion mobile phones sold.

But after years of double digit growth, 2009 will effectively mark a slow down in the mobile phone market, with only 2.1% growth (in units, not revenue). This year, CEA expects 1.2 billion cell phones to be sold.

The smartphone is the killer device in the mobile phone category

Despite over 5% sales decline in the U.S. and Japan, the mobile phone market will still grow rapidly in the rest of Asia (except China), Africa and the Middle East.

While overall mobile handsets sales will be down in the U.S., the smartphone market will grow 31% in units this year. 

Here’s a video excerpt of Herbert comments:

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Consumers Favour Green Over Brand, CEA says (video)

January 7, 2009

green-as-a-purchase-factorWhat could be one of the main surprises here at CES, is that consumers would buy green eletronic products from an unknown brand rather than buy the same less eco-friendly product from a top brand.

The other surprise is that consumers are willing to pay a premium for a green product. This could provide some fantastic opportunities for fairly unknown and new “green” electronics maker to come in and compete effectively with more established companies like Sony, Toshiba and others.

Here’s a video excerpt from the Consumer Electronics Association analyst, Steve Koenig about the green trend:

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Fastest Growing Gadgets in 2009? OLED Displays!

January 7, 2009

cea-fastest-growing-gadgets-2009At yesterday’s “State of the Industry” presentation, CEA analysts gave their prediction for the fastest growing products in 2009.

Based on estimated shipment revenues, their top picks were OLED displays and e-readers (probably another good year for Amazon’s Kindle!), followed by High-Def Flash-based camcorders (+106%) and netbooks (+80%).

I found awkward to see included “climate systems-communicating thermostats”, wireless MP3 players (iPod Touch maybe?) and Home Theaters in a Box (HTIB) with Blu-Ray. Although Blu-Ray players are going to enjoy a fast growth this year.

The bottom line is that amid a steep recession, the consumer electronics market is going to fare better than most sectors in 2009.

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