Smartphones, China Account For Growing Share Of Global CE Retail Sales: GfK

By Joseph Palenchar On Jul 18 2011 - 12:01am

QINGDAO, CHINA – Global retail-level CE sales are growing, and so is China’s share of the pie, according to Germany-based research company GfK Retail and Technology.

The company also found smartphones accounting for a significant and growing share of global CE sales and that combined sales of smartphones and other cellphones exceeds sales of flat-panel TVs.

In a presentation during the China International Consumer Electronics Show (SINOCES), GfK Group GM Juergen Boyny forecast that global retail-level CE sales will grow in 2011 by 6 percent to 668 billion euros ($937.3 billion at an exchange rate of $1 to 0.71 euros) compared with 19 percent growth in 2010 and a 5 percent decline during the Great Recession year of 2009.

In each of these years, China accounts for a growing share of global retail-level CE sales, GfK said. In 2011, China’s share will grow to 13 percent from 2008’s 10 percent while Europe’s share shrinks from 35 percent to 28 percent, Boyny said. In 2011, North America’s share will remain at 21 percent, the same level as it was during the previous three years.

Japan’s CE share will fall in 2011, slipping to 8 percent because of the aftereffects of the earthquake and nuclear-plant disaster. Japan’s share was 10 percent in 2009 and 2010.

The impact of the twin disasters is so severe on Japan’s domestic market that CE retail sales will drop 18 percent in Japan in 2011 following 24 percent growth in 2010. Sales in all other parts of the world in 2011 will grow, albeit at a slower rate than in 2010. In North America, for example, sales will grow 4 percent in 2011, down from 21 percent in 2010. South American CE growth will dip to 27 percent from 39 percent, , and sales in China will slip to 9 percent from 2010’s 26 percent.

With global retail sales growing, although more slowly in 2011, smartphones will account for a greater share of CE sales, rising to 16 percent of global CE spending from 2010”s 10 percent and 2008’s 6 percent.