(Finance) – In the first half of 2024, the Italian market for technological products saw a contraction of 4.7% compared to the same period in 2023, according to a recent report by GfK Market Intelligence. The decline mainly concerns the Smartphone market, which recorded a -4.5%,even if the trend is partly compensated by Smart Devices (Smart Watch in particular), which marks a +4.5% despite the latest projections estimating an annual growth of around 14% until 2028. The Tech market in Italy, according to GFK, is worth around 7 billion euros.
The market that has lost the greatest share is photography. (-12.4%), closely followed by consumer electronics (televisions, hi-fi, Bluetooth speakers and similar, -10.2%, despite a surge of +6.3% in June, probably driven by major sporting events such as the European football championship and the Olympics) and the IT and office world (computers, printers, modems and related, -8.7%).
Stable the world of home comfortmainly composed of air conditioners and heat pumps, which marked a -0.2%, even if the delayed arrival of warm temperatures suggests that this segment could have grown in the first months of H2 2024, following the growth of June this year (+1.8%).
The small household appliance market, on the other hand, is reversing the trendor, consisting of vacuum cleaners, microwaves, air fryers, hair dryers and the like, which marks a +5.8%. In particular, the richest segment of this market, namely vacuum cleaners, marks a +2.4%. The sector as a whole confirms a negative trend of decline which has remained stable since 2022, and which is returning to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 (the technology market in the first half of 2018 was worth just over 7 billion euros).
The Italian data they follow the global market decline, equal to -2.9%, following a trend attributed to a combination of economic factors such as inflation, geopolitical uncertainty and consumer caution, but also aggravated by rates, which slow down financing, and by the general increase in prices.
Shoppers are more focused on purchasing necessary rather than on technological upgrades, while products such as cameras and photographic lenses are seeing their market attacked by smartphones, which offer ever-increasing quality and have almost annihilated the consumer video camera market.
These dynamics reflect a market still in its infancy of post-pandemic adjustment, in which tech products have seen a considerable increase in sales due to the lockdown; the second half of 2024, also thanks to the push represented by Christmas, could play a crucial role in stimulating demand? and making the market grow again?.