The week will certainly be filled with news about the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening in Las Vegas and the devices that could potentially make the world go crazy in the following weeks and months. In this electronics-driven era, global trade shows like CES are some of the most hyped events anticipated year after year, proving that there is an increasing demand for consumer technologies.
The technology industry has been seen to drive around US$351bn in retail revenues in 2018, according to a new research from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). This is 3.9 per cent higher than 2017.
Also read: Samsung's 2018 Family Hub fridge gets Bixby, SmartThings support
"Technology is improving our lives in more ways than ever – and consumer enthusiasm is growing just as quickly as companies can bring their innovations to market," says Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive of CTA.
More than 51 per cent of the total revenues in 2018 will come from smartphones, laptops, televisions, automotive electronics and tablets. Emerging technologies that will continue to make a good impression this year are smart speakers, smart home devices, VR gadgets, drones and wearable technologies.
"Consumers are rapidly adopting new, emerging technology products – with voice-activated smart speakers as the stand-out of 2017 and 2018 – sparking growth in smart home devices, as voice interaction adds a new level of convenience and excitement to our lives," says Brian Markwalter, senior vice president of research and standards at CTA.
Also read: Moen's new smart shower adjusts temperature using Alexa and Siri
Core categories like smartphones, laptops and TVs are predicted to surpass expectations. New-generation TVs, those with LCD 4K and UHD screens, will be a large factor for the massive revenue growth of TVs in 2018.
Added in this year's research are music and video streaming services like Spotify, Hulu, Netflix, Sling TV, Pandora, Apple Music and others, which is expected to increase by 2.2 per cent from its US$19.5bn value in 2017.
CTA also considered the rise of themes like voice computing, artificial intelligence and connectivity to contribute a great amount of success in the consumer technology market in 2018.
