Last year, the European consumer electronics market decreased by 4 percent compared to 2007, GfK publishes today. The impact was felt mainly in the sales of televisions, both at the unit level – 60.3 percent less – and in value, a variable where a drop of 67.6 percent was observed.
However, the biggest drop in prices occurred in the segment dedicated to plasmas, where the cost of equipment was 23.5 percent cheaper. HiFi equipment went against the trend and saw their prices rise by 3.9 percent. Another segment that recorded an opposite behavior was that of LCDs, which saw an increase in units sold of 28.2 percent and in value of 8.4 percent, which is justified by the drop in prices of this type of devices (15 , 5 percent).
The annual report also points out that in the sound sector in Europe, home cinema equipment is one of the only products with the most positive trends. This is because they saw an increase in sales of 8.9 percent, a growth accompanied by a decrease in price of 9.7 percent.
Another conclusion drawn from GfK’s analysis points out that, last year, Europeans put MP3 players aside and started looking for more MP4 equipment. According to figures published today, MP3 devices have seen a 67 percent drop in value, while MP4 players have seen an increase of around 30 percent.
According to GfK, in Portugal, the highlight was also for LCDs during the past year. The market share increased to 61 percent, contrary to the trend of traditional equipment, which fell from 50 to 36 percent, which corresponds to the sale of 300 thousand equipment.
The total volume of sales in the consumer electronics market was 193 million euros, which corresponds to a decrease of 10.8 percent. In terms of invoicing, the accumulated result is 658 million euros, a decrease of 6.9 percent in relation to the total of the previous year.
