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GfK: Consumer IT is a massive cash cow

Australia is leading the way globally with month-by-month revenue increases of up to 27 per cent on last year

Despite patchy retail results, Australian spending on technical goods grew more in June than any other month this year, according to research firm, GfK.

Value growth of technical consumer goods reached 16.2 per cent in June, and 8.8 per cent for the quarter.

GfK strategic planning manager, Gwenno Hopkin, attributed the successful month to the tail-end of stimulus package spending, and a move by consumers to purchase higher-end products.

“With the tax-back promise and stimulus package in the pocket, I suspect people are more inclined to spend that little bit extra,” Hopkin said.

“If you look at the notebook market for instance, we saw a trend for people to buy the higher-spec notebooks over products in the netbook category.”

Hopkin said she was surprised to see growth in all product categories.

“Australia is performing more strongly than all other developed countries,” she said. “The best performing segment was IT, which is largely driven by notebook sales.”

IT grew by 27.2 per cent in the first half of the 2009 calendar year when compared to the same period in 2008. Small domestic appliances (16.6 per cent) and telecommunications (14.2 per cent) were the next highest growth areas.

The smallest areas of growth were in office equipment and consumables (4.1 per cent), consumer electronics (3.9 per cent) and major domestic appliances (2.3 per cent), however no product category experienced a reduction.

The news comes on the back of patchy retail results from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) – a increase of one per cent in May and 2.2 per cent in March being balanced by a flat April and a negative June.

However the ABS covers the entire market, not just electronics, and results from retailers such as JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman suggest the consumer IT market remains strong.

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More about: ABS, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Harvey Norman, Norman
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