The new data, from GfK, shows that the market is now recording the first negative trend for some time in almost all categories. While the overall market is stagnating, GfK observes that premium segments are outperforming across major categories, and expects this trend to continue throughout the second half of the year 2022.
Sohjin Baek, GfK expert for the global IT hardware industry, explained, “Even before we were talking about high inflation rates and high living costs, the electronics market had already been facing price increases since middle of the year 2020. This was due to high demand and supply shortage.
“The urgent demand caused by lockdowns has been fulfilled, so the price increase has now started holding back consumers, who are showing a recent drop in consumer confidence. As a result, the global market is facing a deceleration in the period from January till June 2022.”