COVID-19: Sale of technology with an 18% drop in Portugal. Online contradicts trend

The numbers are from GfK and refer to the week of March 16 to 23, compared to the same week last year. "In the week in which the state of emergency was declared in Portugal, the sale of technological goods had an abrupt fall of 18% in the national market", refers to GfK in a statement, adding that, as Covid-19 spreads globally, Portuguese consumers adapt to a new reality, centered on teleworking and social distance, which immediately affected sales.

The consultant's data refer to evolution in value, after the week of March 9 to 15, sales grew 6% in the technology market and were shared in the report Retailers GfK, which analyzes the sales of the main retailers in the Portuguese market weekly, considering the main products of Consumer Electronics, Informatics, Large and Small Domestic, Photography and Telecom.

Smartphones and TVs were the two categories with the biggest drop, 54 and 34%, respectively, following the international trend, which will have felt a drop above 30% in this category.

Contrary to this negative trend related to COVID-19, the categories linked to the Home Office registered high increases in sales. GfK refers in particular to multifunction printers that grew more than 231%, and portable computers, with a growth of 62%.

In the small household appliances segment, coffee machines also performed very positively, registering an increase in sales of around 46%.

"Although it is difficult to predict the total effect of the virus on the market, social distance will certainly affect total sales", admits the company that still sees it as a window of opportunity to explore sales through trade online, which in the week under analysis showed a growth of more than 80%.

Editor's Note: More information and graphs have been added. latest update 18h24