Asians spend US$93bln on consumer technology products

GfK Asia sees growing demand for portable electronic devices in Asia as consumer spending jumps 6%.

Despite the global economic crisis as well as the occurrences of natural disasters and political unrest which affected some Asian countries in the last two years, demand for consumer technology products was not the least bit affected, with consumers in the region spending over US$93 billion in 2009 alone. These findings were revealed in the recent Spot On Era Client Conference hosted by GfK Retail and Technology (Thailand) at Holiday Inn Silom on 26 August.

Asia’s rapid urbanization, small family sizes and young population are advantageous market attributes that spurs further development of the consumer technology market. GfK’s retail tracking of over 300 such product groups globally in 2009 reflected a six percent growth* in consumer spending in Asia, despite a two percent decline being registered on a global level. The two markets which bucked this global trend with substantial growths were Japan and China, which grew by 19 and 10 percent respectively, according to a GfK Asia report.

“The nine Asian markets covered by GfK Asia have over 3,000 departmental stores and hypermarkets, 22,000 electronics and 48,000 telecommunication specialists shops and 15,000 computer hardware retail outlets that make shopping convenient for Asian consumers who are known to be avid shoppers,” said Mr Stanley Kee, Regional Commercial Director of GfK Asia. In his presentation on Consumer Technology Trends, Mr Kee also said, “One category which is driving growth of the tech sector is portable technology devices such as smartphones, netbooks, digital cameras, portable media players, etc, which recorded sales of USD1038 million in the twelve months ending June 2010, signifying a growth of 36 percent compared to the previous 12 months.”

Mr Kee went on to highlight the current trend and provided a forecast for the consumer electronics industry, “We are seeing increasing integration of tech devices, for instance, music devices miniaturizing and integrating into other products, and smartphones integrated with a full suite of applications and services. Another area to watch out for is the existing hype surrounding 3D devices such TVs and cameras. Surely, 3D is set to drive new frontier in hardware devices in the very near future!” concluded Mr Kee.