Deloitte says small ticket items to dominate 2012

19 January 2012: Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) global industry group has just released its latest TMT Predictions for 2012.

Small is beautiful...

Conclusions of most relevance to our readers include that tablets, smartphones & computers likely to be bought in “record numbers” this year while TV will be seeing “modest growth”, except in developing countries. Smaller ticket items will be hottest in developed markets as purchases of higher priced items are deferred.

Most surprising to hear is TMT’s prediction of a small but but growing number of multi-tablet households… But there is reason behind this forecast, namely an increasing proliferation of tablet form factors (size etc) and price levels.

Network operators will also be influential in broadening the use and adoption of portable devices as they set (lower?) their data pricing as the market develops and increasing the spread of Wi-Fi availability outside of households

TMT also forecasts a continuing reduction in devices with traditional hard drives (HDDs) as opposed to steady increase of SSDs. Again, no surprises there.

Consumers changing their priorities?

What of the consumers themselves? Are they looking to reset their priorities, asks TMT, citing changes in global spending on cars and houses?

“Spending less on housing and transportation enables more money to be spent on technology devices.” True enough and equally, says TMT, consumers may be “readily persuaded to shift spending between seemingly un-connected categories – and marketing should exploit these tendencies.

“For example, consumers with constrained budgets may not be willing to choose between a television or computer; instead they may opt to stay close to home for vacation and then use the resulting travel savings to buy both devices.”

The bottom line?

TMT’s unfashionably bullish bottom line: “Consumer technology has many reasons to perform well in 2012, even in markets with little growth, declining incomes and rising prices.

“There are several major advantages that should be emphasized: new markets enabled by the seemingly inexorable rise in different types of consumer technology; a steady increase in value for the money of many devices; and the growing importance of technology as a status symbol.”

The TMT report online is a little too fragmented for our tastes but there is also a PDF version available that pulls most of the salient information together conveniently in one place.