Alpharetta, Ga.
— About 35 percent of households say they definitely will purchase or are likely
to purchase one or more home audio components in the next year, and the top
three reasons they gave are to improve the quality of music playback, replace
older components, and add surround sound to their video experience,
MarketSource found.
MarketSource, a market research company and provider of
integrated sales and market services, conducted the nationwide on-line survey
exclusively for TWICE. The company compiled responses from 387 adults, yielding
a sample size considered statistically robust to provide a significance level
of
+
5 at a 95 percent confidence interval, MarketSource said.
All told, 12 percent of surveyed adults said they would
definitely purchase one or more audio components, while 23 percent said they
are likely to purchase. A total of 40 percent said they are neither likely nor
unlikely; 33 percent are definitely unlikely to purchase; and 22 percent will
definitely not purchase.
The survey also found that:
–consumers who are likely or definitely planning to buy an audio
component in the next year are more likely to buy speakers than any other type
of component.
–a majority of households surveyed own some type of audio
component.
— cost is the reason cited by a plurality of non-owners for not
considering a component purchase, but current ownership of tabletop stereo
systems and iPod-docking speaker systems was also cited.
–and consumers are far more interested in buying some type of
audio product that distributes music to multiple rooms of the house than they
are in buying audio components in general.
In the survey, MarketSource asked consumers about their intent to
buy such components as AM/FM AV receivers, preamp processors, surround-sound
processors, CD players, and speakers. The survey found that 55 percent of
surveyed households already own an AM/FM receiver but don’t plan in the next
year to replace it. (See figure 1.)
Among current receiver owners as well as non-owners,
11
percent combined are likely or definitely planning to purchase a receiver, and
24 percent say they are unlikely or definitely not planning to purchase.
Among all consumers surveyed, more are likely or definitely
planning to buy speakers (19 percent) than any other type of component, with
preamps and preamp/surround processors coming in second at 15 percent (see
figure 2).
Among the reasons presented to respondents for their interest in
purchasing (see figure 3), consumers cited a desire to improve the sound
quality of music playback (53 percent) as their top reason. The second
most-cited reason was to replace older components (42 percent), followed by
adding surround sound to their video experience (39 percent), improving the
quality of surround-sound playback (32 percent), and replacing a broken
component (25 percent).
The top two reasons were the same for all components but speakers
(see figure 4). For speakers, the top two reasons were improving the sound
quality of music and improving the sound quality of surround-sound playback.
Cost is the reason cited by a plurality (43 percent) of
non-owners for not considering a component purchase (see figure 5). Twenty-one
percent also cited their ownership of a tabletop audio system that sounds good;
13 percent also cited their use of an iPod-docking speaker system; and 6
percent cited ownership of a prepackaged home-theater-in-a-box (HTiB) system.
Only 11 percent said they considered components too complicated to set up, and
only 9 percent said they are too complicated to use.
The survey also found that interest in purchasing multiroom-audio
products and audio products with Internet-radio capability is higher than
interest in buying audio components in general. Thirty-two percent of
respondents said they were either definitely (9 percent) or likely (23 percent)
planning in the next year to buy some sort of audio product that distributes
one or more songs simultaneously to different rooms of the house. Thirty-three
percent were definitely or likely to buy an audio product that streamed
Internet radio (10 percent definitely, 23 percent likely).
Of the respondents, 68 percent were female. Thirty-seven percent
had a college degree. Twenty-three percent had a graduate degree. Thirty
percent had some college education, and 10 percent had a high-school education.
Twenty-one percent had household incomes of more than $100,000.
Twenty-one percent had household incomes of more than $75,000 but less than
$100,000. Twenty-five percent had incomes of more than $50,000 but less than
$75,000. And 21 percent had incomes of more than $25,000 but less than $50,000.
