It was a disappointing Black Friday overall for consumer electronics, according to The NPD Group, with sales falling almost 6 percent compared to last year, for the week of November 18-24.
This drop followed a similar decline last year of nearly 4 percent for Black Friday week.
Some of the steepest declines were seen in portable navigation devices and camcorders, which each fell 40 percent below last year’s revenues.
It is important to note, howver, that NPD does not include some of the hottest gadgets in its report. The analyst group does not consider mobile phones, iPad, Kindle, Surface, and video games as consumer electronics products.
NPD’s number showed that Android tablets and TVs accounted for 58 percent of all Black Friday sales dollars, up from 51 percent of sales in 2009.
“In an unbalanced market, where just a few categories deliver significant dollars, and even fewer offer any growth, the ability to deliver positive results will remain difficult for companies exposed to the entire consumer electronics marketplace,” said NPD’s Steve Baker.
“This slow start [to the holiday season] is merely a continuation of the challenges seen in the consumer electronics business throughout 2012,” he added.
Notebook PCs fell 10 percent in units. Flat panel TV revenues fell 6 percent although unit volume increased 4 percent. But 60-inch and above TVs increased a staggering 10 times over 2010, accounting for 6 percent of all TV unit volume (compared to less than 1 percent a couple of years ago).
Android tablet revenue jumped 91 percent over last year with units up 177 percent.
See the full NPD press release here.
Source: NPD
