PRESS INFORMATION | HEMIX

Home Electronics Market Index (HEMIX) Q1-4/2018

The Home electronics market grew in 2018, primarily due to an increase in smartphone sales of 1.4% – Stable performance is expected in 2019.

The market for home electronics (HE), represented by HEMIX, the Home Electronics Market Index, has increased over the full year of 2018 by 1.4%. 42.4 billion euros in sales were reached in 2018. “The smartphone segment achieved the highest growth. Many other product areas grew along with smartphones, including OLED and large televisions, soundbars, wireless home audio systems, audio and video accessories and wearables in the consumer electronics segment, as well as small home appliances”, explained Joachim Kamp, chairman of the supervisory board of gfu Consumer & Home Electronics GmbH in Frankfurt, Germany.

The consumer electronics segment increased by 2% to almost 28.2 billion euros. Private telecommunications increased to 12.4%. Traditional entertainment devices saw a decline of 6.6% to just under 9.3 billion euros in 2018 when compared to the same period in the previous year. Private IT products also performed slightly under the previous year with a decline of 2.4% to almost 6.6 billion euros. Household electrical appliances were stable at 14.2 billion euros. For the first time in more than ten years, large electrical appliances recorded a drop of 1.6% to 8.7 billion euros, while small electrical appliances continued to grow in 2018, with a 3.2% increase to almost 5.5 billion euros.

Market performance in 2018

Large-screen televisions sales are up –both OLED and UHD formats

The television segment accounts for the largest share of sales in traditional consumer electronics, at just under 4.1 billion euros. Compared to the previous year, sales were down by 3.9%. However, large screens and higher definition televisions continued their positive trend from 2017 in 2018. Televisions with screens of 45 inches (94cm) or larger account for the majority of sales – almost 71% – at just under 2.9 billion euros. 77% of sales in 2018 were for ultra-high definition (UHD) televisions, with a screen resolution of 8 million pixels. The number of units sold increased by 33% to reach 3.6 million. Televisions using OLED technology generated sales of 512 million euros in 2018, an increase of 71%, where the number of units sold rose by 119% to 243,000 units.

In Germany in 2017, analog broadcast signals were switched off in many areas, leading broadcasters to convert their signals from DVB-T to DVB-T2 HD signals. Accordingly, sales of both televisions and set-top boxes recorded exceptional growth in 2017. This was not repeated in 2018.

Soundbars ensure growth in audio – DAB+ is a success

The soundbar segment continued to grow in 2018 as it had in previous years, showing an 8.8% increase in sales. Sales of headphones also increased, reaching almost 12.7 million units (+5.6%) and 578 million euros (+20.9%). Digital radio receivers (DAB+) saw an increase in the number of units sold in 2018 to almost 1.4 million devices. The revenue from this segment rose to 218 million euros (+10%).

Smartphones continue to grow

Smartphones continued to drive the most sales in the consumer electronics segment with 23 million units sold (+0.3%). Revenue increased by 12.5% to almost 11.3 billion euros and the average price of a smartphone rose by 12.1% to 489 euros in 2018.

IT products declined in 2018

Two of the three personal computer segments recorded a decline in sales in 2018. Only tablet devices saw growth, where revenue increased by 0.7%, but the number of units sold decreased by 0.8% to around 4 million. Notebooks lost 6.4%, falling to 4 million units sold and desktop PCs dropped by 6.4% to 923,000 units sold. In terms of revenue, desktop PCs contributed 755 million euros (-1.9%), notebooks recorded almost 2.8 billion euros (-4.4%) and tablet devices reached 1.2 billion euros (+0.7%).

Large electrical appliances declined for the first time in 10 years – small appliances grew

In household electrical appliances, only the small electrical appliance segment grew in 2018 compared with the previous year. There was strong demand for easy-to-use and quality appliances, especially in the kitchen. Among the bestsellers in large and small electrical appliances were tumble dryers with heat-pump technology, stove tops with integrated exhaust fans, battery-operated vacuum cleaners and fully automatic coffee machines.

Stable performance forecast for 2019

Television, audio and smartphone segments set to grow, sales of private IT products to continue to shrink

“For the current year, we are forecasting an overall stable performance at the same level as last year in the home electronics market, represented by HEMIX. The large-screen television and audio segments are expected to grow. The private market for smartphones will continue its growth from 2018. We expect to see a slight decline in the private IT products segment. For household electrical appliances, we expect a similar performance in 2019 as in 2018,” says Hans-Joachim Kamp.

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 00
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