UPDATED 21:30 EDT / JANUARY 04 2017

EMERGING TECH

Good news and bad news for 2017 consumer tech sales: up in U.S., down globally

Despite global economic uncertainty, there’s good news for the U.S. technology market in the year ahead, as the Consumer Technology Association projects the consumer tech industry could rise 1.5 percent to a record $292 billion in retail sales in 2017.

The bad news? The report predicts global consumer technology sales will decline to $929 million, a 2 percent drop from 2016. Driving the slight decline in global revenues are more traditional categories such as televisions, laptops and desktops, with all three either predicted to remain steady or see declining sales.

The projections were revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Emerging tech products look to be the driving force behind the growth. Smart home devices, including smart thermostats, smoke detectors, locks, doorbells, home systems and switches are expected to reach sales of 29 million units in 2017, up 63 percent over 2016.

Digital assistant devices, such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo speaker and Google Inc.’s Home, are expected to achieve sales of 4.5 million units, up 52 percent year-on-year with revenue increasing to $608 million, up 36 percent on 2016. Virtual and augmented reality devices make the growth list as well, with headset sales expected to reach 2.5 million units on $660 million in revenue, up year-on-year 79 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

While a little looser in its projections on drones, the CTA expects sales of 3 million to 4 million units with revenue surpassing $1 billion for the first time. Despite slowing sales from smartwatches in 2016, wearables, driven by continued strong demand for fitness activity trackers, are expected to reach 48 million units in 2017, up 14 percent over last year, with revenue up 3 percent to $5.5 billion.

“2016 was an important year of transition – with potentially game changing products including VR headsets and digital assistant devices gaining steam within mass consumer markets. I expect 2017 to be a year where many of these emerging tech categories find their footing and really take off,” CTA Chief Economist Shawn DuBravac said in a statement. “We’ve had more progress in voice-activated digital assistants in the last 30 months than in the first 30 years. Word recognition accuracy has improved from nearly zero percent in the 1990s to 75 percent in 2013 to about 95 percent today – enabling these devices to enjoy immense consumer adoption.”

Image credit: mager/Flickr/CC by 2.0

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