The Consumer Electronics Association earlier this month revised its forecast for the holiday season. CEA reduced its projection for fourth quarter wholesale shipment revenues to an increase of just .1 percent, down from the earlier forecast of 3.5 percent.
The change, CEA said, was based on new data, both from October monthly numbers and its own surveys of shoppers, on the phone and in-store, before, during and after Black Friday. The group’s economist, Shawn DuBravac, and its senior director of research, Tim Herbert, hosted an hourlong Web cast Thursday to discuss the Black Friday numbers and other holiday issues.
Among highlights of the Web cast:
– The change in the forecast was largely the result of either negative or smaller-than-expected growth in several categories, including audio/video, which was expected to grow 3.9 percent but is now projected to contract by 4.8 percent.
– 76 million U.S. adults- 33 percent of the population- shopped during Black Friday weekend, defined as the Friday-through-Sunday after Thanksgiving.
– CEA expects gift spending to be reduced by 16 percent over last year, although CE is expected to take up a bigger part of that number.
– Consumer Electronics were the second most-purchased category on Black Friday, behind only clothes. 54 percent of shoppers on the weekend bought at least one item in the category. Of Black Friday CE purchases, 50 of them by women were “me” purchases, a number rising to 59 percent among men.
– CEA also took surveys of shoppers during Black Friday, and found that customers were most interested in GPS devices, portable mp3 players and TVs. In the next tier were digital cameras, accessories, gaming hardware and software, and laptop PCs.
– Blu-ray sales are surging, and are likely to hit CEA’s forecast of 2.8 million units this year.
