The home electronics market in the first quarter of 2019 is just under the previous year – strong sales in audio and video accessories and wearables; growth for large and small electrical appliances.
The market for home electronics (HE), represented by HEMIX, the Home Electronics Market Index, has declined slightly in the first quarter of 2019, 1% under its performance in same period in the previous year. From January to March 2019, total sales reached almost 10.2 billion euros.
Consumer electronics market performance
Consumer electronics recorded a 2.7% drop in sales in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the same period last year, reaching sales of around 6.5 billion euros. The three consumer electronics segments, private telecommunications (-1.7%, 2.8 billion euros), entertainment devices (-5.1%, about 2.1 billion euros) as well as private IT products (-1.3%, almost 1.7 billion euros) all recorded a decline in sales.
In the consumer electronics segment, the Q1/2019 sales of televisions reached 995 million euros (-0.2%). The number of TVs sold rose by 8.6% to more than 1.7 million, but the average price of all televisions sold decreased by 8.2% to only 576 euros. This sharp decline in the average price prevented the growth that would otherwise have occurred because of the high demand. The home audio segment recorded a 6.8% decline in sales to 281 million euros. Audio and video accessories, however, continued to grow in the first quarter of 2019, reaching sales of 244 million euros (+11.6%).
Within the private telecommunications segment, core wearables generated a significant increase in sales of 208 million euros (+48.4%) over the previous year. The number of devices sold (just under 1.2 million units, +38.8%) and the average price (174 euros, +6.9%) both increased significantly. Despite an increase in the average price to 488 euros (+2.2%), smartphones suffered a decline in sales (just under 2.5 billion euros) as the number of devices sold fell to around 5 million (-6.3%).
Thanks to the strong growth of tablet device sales (+10.2%), monitors (+13.2%) and printers (+7.5%), the decline in sales of private IT products was not as strong as in the same period in 2018 – it only dropped by 1.3%.
Household electrical appliance market performance
Both household appliance segments showed positive trends: large appliance sales were up by 0.8% to over 2.2 billion euros, and small appliances generated an increase of 4.9% to almost 1.4 billion euros.
Full-year forecast
Market researches are expecting an overall stable performance in 2019, similar to the previous year, for the entire home electronic market including both consumer electronics and home appliances.
The market data is collected jointly by GFU Consumer & Home Electronics GmbH and Gfk Retail and Technology GmbH uniformly from all market participants, and collated in the form of the official Home Electronics Market Index (HEMIX). It is published quarterly in cooperation with the German Association of Retail Technology (BVT). HEMIX contains the current market data as sourced by these knowledgeable partners.
HEMIX represents the quarterly German market performance based on both quantity and value. The home electronics market is defined as the sum of sales of consumer electronic products and electrical household appliances in Germany to private consumers.
View the complete HEMIX data on the websites of the participating partners.
For more information, please visit:
gfu Consumer & Home Electronics GmbH
Dr. Alexander Pett (Managing Director)
Telephone: +49 69 6302-219
Email: pett@gfu.de
Roland M. Stehle (Press and Public Relations)
Telephone: +49 911 377 79 0
Email: stehle@gfu.de
Website: www.gfu.de
GfK Retail and Technology GmbH
Andreas Peplinski
Telephone: +49 911 395–4802
Email: Andreas.Peplinski@gfk.com
Website: www.gfk.com
German Association of Retail Technology (BVT)
Steffen Kahnt (Managing Director)
Telephone: +49 221 271 66–10
Joachim Dünkelmann (Deputy Managing Director)
Telephone: +49 221 271 66–14
Email: bvt@einzelhandel.de
Website: www.bvt-ev.de