Feb 17, 2009: German consumers hardly impressed by looming economic downturn
According to a representative survey by hi-tech association BITKOM, two thirds of German consumers said they were going to buy consumer electronics products in 2009. Demand will be particularly high for computer accessories (storage cards, PC mice, printers and webcams). Despite a mostly saturated market, 19 percent of all Germans intend to buy a mobile phone in the near future. This is followed by flat screen TV sets (18 percent), computers / laptops and games software (17 percent each). 16 percent plan to purchase digital cameras, while 12 percent would opt for new MP3 players. Especially younger consumers (14 to 29 years) intend to own new electronics items: 90 percent in this age group will at least buy one new product. Favourites are mobile phones, computer accessories and games software. The elderly (60+) prefer flat screen TVs, PC accessories and digital cameras.
Meanwhile, industry association BIU announced that sales of computer games rose by 14 percent to € 1.57 bn in 2008, of which software run on game pads represented € 744 mn. Traditional PC systems, however, lost 7 percent of sales, down to € 438 mn. Sales for mobile devices climbed 6.7 percent to € 384 mn.
