New car audio/video/navigation results from the NPD Group, show again that the industry’s losses have plateaued, and that the car stereo specialist is seeing a bigger slice of the pie.
Sales of car AV/navigation excluding portable navigation devices (PNDs) rose 5 percent year to date through July over last year in unit sales to consumers.
Dollar sales for the period were dead even with last year at about $481 million.
There were solid gains in both car amplifiers and speakers.
Car amplifiers rose 14 percent in units and 10 percent in dollars to sales of over $50 million, year to date through July.
Car speaker sales rose 11 percent in units and 8 percent in dollars to sales of over $112 million for the period.
In-dash players of all types rose 6 percent in units but declined 3 percent in dollars compared to a year ago, hitting approximately $146 million.
A trusted source told us Friday that NPD data also shows that the mass merchant share of the car audio retail market has declined by 9 percent over the past 2 years.
By contrast, car electronics retailers saw their share gain by 4 percent in the category over the same period. eCommerce also had a 6 percent gain, looking at share of all car AV and navigation with the exception of PNDs and video-in-a-bag type products.
Kenwood’s Keith Lehmann, noted, “The specialists still in business have taken steps to improve their businesses. And buying groups like ICE and MESA have been a tremendous help. They teach best practices and they promote and they really deliver on the in-store experience that has been sorely missed in some of these other channels.”
Sony’s Mike Kahn said of the results, “I have good confidence that calendar year 2011 will continue to see growth into the holiday season.”
Source: NPD Group
Top photo via aarconsommateur.org
My bad Barry on the misspelling of your name.
@Berry
Well said. Everyone needs to stick to MSRP. If a customer shops 10 stores and the part is the same price . . . . something magical happens. This customer realizes that this what the part is worth. Build value in your product not devalue it. This can be done, but not with out a valiant group effort.
The numbers tell another story. While still deeply entrenched in an overall economic quagmire, and with price increases fro nearly every major manufacturer, sales have edged upward. Message: Price erosion is not the answer to market share. All it does is devalue our product, our craft, and our perceived value in the marketplace. Replace price erosion with value enhancement!