Speaker Market Has Pockets of Strength Despite Shift to Mobile Listening, Futuresource Reports
Every loudspeaker product category except computer speakers will experience an average retail price increase through 2021, said a Thursday Futuresource report. The overall loudspeaker market is shrinking, with unit volume down 10 percent and market value down 3.5 percent from…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
2016-2017, analyst Guy Hammett emailed us. Overall, bookshelf and floor-standing speaker sales have suffered on the rise of wireless speakers at the entry level, but “pockets of opportunity” remain, said Hammett, who sees some life in the premium loudspeaker segment. Despite shifting consumer listening patterns toward headphones for audio and to streaming services for video on laptops and mobile devices, loudspeakers are “maintaining a foothold in the marketplace,” said Hammett, citing 51 million-unit shipments in 2017 that generated $3 billion in trade value. The $2,500-plus tier has about 10 percent of the floor standing speaker market in unit volume, said Hammett, but it’s responsible for more than 50 percent of the value, a trend expected to continue to 2022. “For many people, headphones and portable wireless speakers cannot completely replace traditional loudspeakers,” said the analyst, saying audio enthusiasts are willing to pay more for a superior listening experience. The “vinyl resurgence” and an increase in stereo listening are driving the higher end of the market, while high-quality networked AV receivers have also bolstered the passive speaker industry, he said. The in-wall and in-ceiling category stands out, growing in volume and value, led by the U.S., which had more than half the worldwide market last year. Three-quarters of those shipments go into new construction, making the category highly dependent on the new housing market, it said.