Strong September Sales Of Audio Products Lead The Way For The Holiday Season

6-Dec-00

Factory sales of audio products continued its upward trend this year with strong sales in September, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). At the beginning edge of this holiday selling season, total audio product revenues rose eight percent from the same month last year to $916 million, with all the audio categories reporting growth. For the first three quarters of the year, total revenues are up 11 percent to $6.2 billion compared to the same period in 1999, leading the industry into its busiest selling season. Aftermarket autosound put the pedal to the metal in September, with revenues up 12 percent. In-dash CD players and power amplifiers were the driving force behind this growth with the former pulling in $116 million in the month, an increase of 28 percent from September of last year. Sales dollars from the power amplifier category rose 24 percent to $29 million. The year-to-date aftermarket autosound revenues are up three percent from the first nine months of last year to $1.7 billion.Hot summertime sales of portable audio products continued to burn in September. Sales increased five percent to an impressive $293 million, with year-to-date revenues up 19 percent to $1.9 billion. Much of this growth is due to sales of the popular and convenient headset CD players, which are up 30 percent for the year thus far, with revenues of $609 million. Portable devices that play compressed digital audio files (MP3 players) have reached revenues of $78 million in the first three quarters of the year, with 414,000 units sold to dealers.In the home audio category, audio systems sales were up 11 percent in September to $243 million, bringing the year-to-date dollar figure up nine percent from last year at this time to $1.5 billion. The sales of separate components rose four percent in the month to $157 million, sounding out a year-to-date number that is a substantial 12 percent ahead of 1999 at $1.1 billion.""We know that sales of audio products will continue to contribute significantly to the year-end sales forecast of all consumer electronics products (over $88 billion),"" said Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of CEA. ""Whether it be listening to music in a home theater environment, on-the-go, or through a desktop computer, digital audio is part of consumers' lives. The trend will continue as new formats, such as DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD, allow listeners to be completely immersed in new sound experiences."" For more information about the CEA, visit www.ce.org.

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