Dolby European HQ, Soho Square, London
This luxury venue was booked for the annual Clarity Conference and AGM. Clarity is the UK Hi Fi dealer and manufacturer trade association tasked with publicising our industry, communicating with purchasers and improving training for better informed sales, install and customer backup.
Dolby
Industry presentations were led by Venkat Venkateshwaran of Dolby explaining and showcasing the Dolby Atmos higher performance multi-speaker Home Theatre standard, at their in-house 36 JBL speaker (26 dedicated to the surround channels) 68 seat movie theatre installation, and very loud and impressive it was. Forget Blumlien and phase, this is precision intensity pan potting directed from a sound effects control surface. The translation to the home theatre scene was outlined, noting compatibility with existing 7.1 multi-channel arrangements, bar the additional decoder function to the extra height feeds for the overhead effects. Venkat explained the success of the new format with 900 cinemas now equipped worldwide and some 250 films produced. Home speaker makers are finding new solutions to delivering the new height and directional information.
GFK
Nick Simon and Lucy Twist of GFK market research presented some fascinating collated market data about changes in audio industry sales over past years, and more particularly trends for last year. Almost by way of an aside Nick showed how consumer confidence has lifted as each new prime minister is elected, from John Major 1990/1991 to David Cameron mid 2012, except for Gordon Brown’s accession mid 2007 when it dipped 30%!
Trends for consumer electronics 2013 to 2014 were up 8%, but photo was down 12% as mobiles continue to offer improving picture taking. In the audio related field networked music systems including WiFi docks gained 54%, headphones 4% Soundbars 44%, 50inch plus TV 54%, but dock speakers improved only 5% and portable radios lost 1%.
DVD players have been dropping down for a while but now Blu-ray takes a further hit dropping 15% -year on year. Smaller TVs gained only 1% and the Home Theatre category fell a whopping 36%. Also clock radios fell 14% and portable music players, iPods etc, lost 33%.
‘Hi Fi’, and including network and dock devices, saw some growth, 3%.
But within this global figure traditional audio is now only 25% of the total at £38m and has actually dropped 40%. This fall is dominated by separates including loudspeakers and HT receivers though oddly enough amplifiers gained 12%, and from a small baseline, turntables have gained 80%. By value the overall growth in ‘Hi Fi’ is actually for connected and networked music systems.
Amazingly turntables doubled in volume to nearly 100,000 units and took nearly 20% of market value in their audio sector. But this pales in comparison to the streaming market now worth £400m, dominated by soundbars and wireless speakers, generally lower cost, though the trend suggests higher cost models over £400 will become more important in the future.
Trends for consumer electronics 2013 to 2014 were up 8%, but photo was down 12% as mobiles continue to offer improving picture taking. In the audio related field networked music systems including WiFi docks gained 54%, headphones 4% Soundbars 44%, 50inch plus TV 54%, but dock speakers improved only 5% and portable radios lost 1%.
DVD players have been dropping down for a while but now Blu-ray takes a further hit dropping 15% -year on year. Smaller TVs gained only 1% and the Home Theatre category fell a whopping 36%. Also clock radios fell 14% and portable music players, iPods etc, lost 33%.
‘Hi Fi’, and including network and dock devices, saw some growth, 3%.
But within this global figure traditional audio is now only 25% of the total at £38m and has actually dropped 40%. This fall is dominated by separates including loudspeakers and HT receivers though oddly enough amplifiers gained 12%, and from a small baseline, turntables have gained 80%. By value the overall growth in ‘Hi Fi’ is actually for connected and networked music systems.
Amazingly turntables doubled in volume to nearly 100,000 units and took nearly 20% of market value in their audio sector. But this pales in comparison to the streaming market now worth £400m, dominated by soundbars and wireless speakers, generally lower cost, though the trend suggests higher cost models over £400 will become more important in the future.
The squeeze on older 30pin docks means that there are now 50 models competing for each dock space at the retailer.
After a dip during the recession, headphone sales are on the up, but not quite to 2012 levels while smartphone compatibly is a key selling point here. Bluetooth cans are growing fast and headband phones are proving twice as popular as the cheaper in-ear models. But overall, from the quality audio viewpoint, decent stereo separates continue to be squeezed. WiFi connected, compact all-in-one speakers are now strongly displacing stereo speaker separates for market share.
After a dip during the recession, headphone sales are on the up, but not quite to 2012 levels while smartphone compatibly is a key selling point here. Bluetooth cans are growing fast and headband phones are proving twice as popular as the cheaper in-ear models. But overall, from the quality audio viewpoint, decent stereo separates continue to be squeezed. WiFi connected, compact all-in-one speakers are now strongly displacing stereo speaker separates for market share.
Google
Richard Hartigan of Google illustrated the process of deciding to purchase for consumer electronics and the massive influence of social media on marketing. On the four step purchase decision trail there is first a stimulus to buy, then ZMOT – the first zero moment of truth when the buyers researches the product and where best to buy, then the moment of truth when purchase is made, online or at a store, and finally, 4, you get it home to unpack and assess. What are the steps involved?
For independent CE product information, 72% were accessed online with a search engine. Matching store and manufacturers online views score 54%. Even when the customer is in the store 25% of consumers used a store computer for further product research before purchase.
And home audio and video product searches have grown 25% in the last year.
YouTube is increasingly important for consumer electronics with 334m related monthly views for phone and tablet, 95m for computers 83m home entertainment and 13.2m for headphone and personal audio.
The site viewing split is not very demographic since views are in the ratio of 89% male to 11% female.
Total CE consumer electronics views are an astonishing 19billion. TV advertising is the traditional pull but actually YouTube beats them all, for the UK market at least.
The view demographic for CE is perhaps surprising , 44% female to 56% male and while the 6-14 year olds take 8%, the 55 plus group take a sizeable 16%. The viewing peak is for 15-24 years olds with 22% but the spread is quite even for those older groups.
Note that 45% of all CE searches are now done on a mobile, yet 40% of the top 100 sites are not so optimised, more fool them.
And home audio and video product searches have grown 25% in the last year.
YouTube is increasingly important for consumer electronics with 334m related monthly views for phone and tablet, 95m for computers 83m home entertainment and 13.2m for headphone and personal audio.
The site viewing split is not very demographic since views are in the ratio of 89% male to 11% female.
Total CE consumer electronics views are an astonishing 19billion. TV advertising is the traditional pull but actually YouTube beats them all, for the UK market at least.
The view demographic for CE is perhaps surprising , 44% female to 56% male and while the 6-14 year olds take 8%, the 55 plus group take a sizeable 16%. The viewing peak is for 15-24 years olds with 22% but the spread is quite even for those older groups.
Note that 45% of all CE searches are now done on a mobile, yet 40% of the top 100 sites are not so optimised, more fool them.
Haymarket Publications: Connected with Social Media
Presented by Chloe Harman and Andy Clough (What Hi Fi)
Andy and Chloe explained how What Hi Fi gets 12.5 million page views per annum and also described their co-manufacture promotions such as the successful campaign at CES 2015 sponsored by Philips to make seven show videos. These gained 115,000 views, the top ranking for this topic. They also discussed the importance of using the social media channels, with interesting examples of combination promotions involving all the social media.
Andy and Chloe explained how What Hi Fi gets 12.5 million page views per annum and also described their co-manufacture promotions such as the successful campaign at CES 2015 sponsored by Philips to make seven show videos. These gained 115,000 views, the top ranking for this topic. They also discussed the importance of using the social media channels, with interesting examples of combination promotions involving all the social media.
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