UK Technology News- May 2012

Retail Overview     Dear Ms. Voisdie,     Consumer Electronics doesn’t decline in April 2012!   Seems a strange headline but, for the first time since June 2010, the Consumer Electronics (CE) category did not decline in value compared to the same month one year before. Factors include new models and events, such as the forthcoming European football and Digital Switchover. Their influence and that of the Olympics, may well keep CE in growth for a few months across the summer.   Looking to other categories, April was in general a good month. IT rose around 20%, White Goods 9% and Small Domestic Appliances 15%. Growth was mixed, so in IT for example, a lot of the positivity is down to low ownership devices, such as Tablets and Electronic Readers, with other more replacement led markets showing some slight declines.   The only category "fly in the ointment" is Photo. Here, April 2012 value was worse than April 2011 by around -13%. This decline is a result of a value and volume drop in standard compact cameras as the "great cannibaliser", the Smart Phone, impacts the volume sector of the Photo market. More complex cameras with changeable lenses are showing pleasing increases, however.   Once again, innovation is king and keeping clear technical and benefit leadership over cannibalising products, such as the smart phone, is crucial. Nigel Catlow Businesss Group Director GfK Retail and Technology UK Click here to see what events GfK RT UK are involved in over the next few months. Follow us on Twitter!       Mobile Broadband market shows growth with SIMs leading the charge     The Mobile Broadband market has seen encouraging growth in April, with an increase of over 15% in sales from March. This is seen mainly through the Prepay SIM side of the market, which has grown its share of the market to over 20%, with the Contract Webbook segment of the market also showing good growth and moving to over 10% share this month. The increase in the market for April can be attributed to a key device launch within the Webbook hardware market.  more...       IT value added by Tablets     IT was reinforced in April 2012 by new and innovative categories, pushing the overall IT marketplace into strong value growth. In volume, three categories were in appreciable growth and those were Media Gateways, streaming devices which allow transfer of media from your PC to TV or other device, Webbooks, tablet-based internet browsing devices and E-readers, dedicated book digital book reading devices.  more...       The influence of new products     The first 4 months of 2012 seemed to be challenging for the camera market in Great Britain. The total value of the photo market, as tracked by GfK, was down -6% in value in January to April 2012 compared to the previous year. Standard compact cameras, (with under 10 times optical zoom), are the category suffering the most with a -32% decline in value in the first 4 months of 2012 compared to the previous year.  more...       Upturn for the CE market in April     Despite the UK economy re-entering recession, having shrunk -0.2% in the first quarter of 2012, and continuing low levels of consumer confidence, the Consumer Electronics market grew in value in April 2012 compared to April 2011. This is the first genuine uplift since June 2010, since the growth that can be seen in December 2011 was more of a calendar based effect.  more...