Home Audio System Shipments Boost Overall Sales In January

By Joseph Palenchar On Apr 16 2001 - 6:00am

ARLINGTON, VA. — Surging sales of home audio systems came together with strong portable audio growth to boost January's factory-level audio sales by 3 percent to $503 million, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) statistics show.

Sales fell for the fourth consecutive month in each of the industry's two other segments — home audio component and aftermarket autosound.

Despite the month's gain, total January sales were still off their 1995 peak of $580 million.

Home system sales (including shelf, rack and home-theater-in-a-box systems) surged 28.4 percent to a January record of $140 million. Home-theater-in-a-box sales accounted for $50 million.

Driven in part by headphone CD player sales, portable audio sales (including home radios) grew 7 percent to a four-year January high of $133 million, reversing declines in each of the two previous months. Headphone CD sales surged 53 percent to $48 million.

The study also showed that CD-R audio-based hardware (in the audio separates category) is growing, with four times the dollar volume of January 2000, putting total home CD sales up 4 percent at $24 million, CEA reported.

Autosound sales slipped 8.4 percent to $126 million, while home component sales fell 11.4 percent to $104 million. In the preceding three months, component sales fell twice at double-digit rates.