This weekend, the 2011 sports year comes to a crescendo as the Patriots and Giants meet in Super Bowl XLVI. The timing of this de facto national holiday—after New Year’s and the frenzy of the holiday shopping season, is advantageous for retailers and manufacturers looking to invigorate their Q1 TV sales. Understandably, much of consumers’ focus will be on trading up to bigger screens in the shopping week prior to the game, but other features like 3D could also have an impact on buyers.
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Reflecting on the just concluded CES is an analyst ritual, although normally one I choose not to participate in. Too many gadgets to see, too many booths to comprehend, too much information for one person to absorb. And I spend more time off the floor with clients and retailers than I do wandering the aisles of South Hall.
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Last year’s CES saw an invasion of mobile converged devices. With smartphone launches spurred by the introduction of Verizon’s LTE network (and joined by HSPA+ expansion by AT&T and T-Mobile) and a wall’s worth of tablets seeking to head off the iPad 2, it seemed as though consumer electronics were tied to the state of the slate.
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CES 2012 marks the beginning of mainstream Wi-Fi integration in cameras and camcorders. Canon, Kodak, Samsung, and Sony are among those in the game with wireless introductions, a move that could very likely score with consumers and an imaging segment that has been struggling.
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Before The 2012 International CES even officially started there were some interesting developments on press day.
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The first big news of CES happened when Vizio announced its intention to enter the notebook and AIO desktop markets in the middle of 2012. They would join an exhaustive list of companies selling PCs to consumers through U.S. retail. In fact they would be the 10th company of note (although there are even more brands than that) to have a presence on the U.S. retail shelf.
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Walk through any high school, college campus, or mall in America and you’re bound to see a young person listening to a big chunky pair of headphones. Whether the super popular Beats by Dre line, Roc Nation models from Skullcandy, or Soul by Ludacris, stereo headphones have quickly become equal parts listening device and fashion accessory.
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Silence is probably the best way to say goodbye to the CE industry for 2011. With notable, familiar exceptions, the past year will go down in the annals of history as one most of the industry wishes to forget. History demands, however, that we at least take a quick look back at some of the biggest challenges of 2011 and think about how things might be different in 2012.
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‘Tis the season for CES predictions and I thought I would offer my own take on some of the stories we’re likely to see during the 2012 International CES.
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NPD released its weekly sales results for the third week of the five week holiday season yesterday and the results to date remain choppy. As a reminder NPD’s Weekly Tracking Service does not include all of the retailers who participate in our monthly reporting nor does it include all consumer technology categories (with notable exclusions including tablets, smartphones, and e-readers). Even with these caveats the results provide a highly effective signpost in directing us towards the final results for the holiday season.
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Consumer Technology | Ben Arnold, Director of Industry Analysis | 
February 1, 2012 12:05 pm | 
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