Total US market handset sales likely to grow at CAGR of about 1.5 percent to 144 million units in 2014

DUBLIN, IRELAND: Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "United States Consumer Electronics Report Q3 2010" report to its offering.

Business Monitor International's United States Consumer Electronics Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, electronics associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on the United States' consumer electronics industry.

The US consumer electronics devices market, defined as the addressable market for computing devices, mobile handsets and AV products, is projected to be worth around $232.9 billion in 2010. This is expected to increase to $268.1 billion by 2014 at a CAGR of 3.6 percent, driven by premium TV sets, smartphones and notebooks.

In the first quarter of 2010, sales of consumer electronics products such as notebooks and LED-backlit TV sets grew strongly, building on a recovery signalled by solid 2009 winter holiday sales of consumer electronics products. However, consumer credit has been contracting at an unprecedented pace over the past several months, and we see this trend continuing.

Going forward, mature markets in many segments mean that growth will rely to a large extent on product innovation such as Android smartphones, and touchscreen handsets as well as 3D and internet-enabled and 3DTV sets.

Computers
BMI forecasts US PC sales of $116.6 billion in 2010. CAGR for the 2010-2014 period will be around 4.6 percent, but there will be growth areas in multimedia and entertainment notebooks.

US PC sales grew strongly in Q110, with unit sales estimated by BMI at above 17 million units. BMI estimated that the market is on course for total PC sales of 77 million in 2010. Netbooks and notebooks remain the largest product category, but face competition from the smartphones of Palm, RIM, Apple and other vendors as well as tablet notebooks, spearheaded by Apple's iPad.

AV
The US domestic video, audio and gaming device market is projected at $66.9 billion in 2010. Video applications will account for around 80 percent of demand during the 2010-2014 forecast period, with growth areas linked to new technologies such as LED TV sets, 3DTV and Blu-ray.

Vendors will focus on product innovation, with drivers including improved display quality and wider screens, as well as features such as internet connectivity. Sales of 3DTV sets in the United State markets could exceed 3 million units in 2010, or around 10 percent of the expected LCD TV market.

Mobile handsets
Total US market handset sales are expected to grow at a CAGR of about 1.5 percent to 144 million units in 2014. With an increasingly saturated US market, handset revenues will be driven by emerging product areas such as smartphones, touchscreen phones and HD camera phones.

Smartphones will be a key growth area and currently account for around 20 percent of volume sales in the US market. As new long-term evolution (LTE) networks begin to come online from 2010, this should boost replacement handset purchases.