Drones, Smart Home To Lead Tech Growth

by , January 13, 2017

Drones, Smart Home To Lead Tech Growth

The technology industry will see at least some moderate growth in 2017, boosted by new categories that are catching on with broader populations. 

According to The NPD Group’s first-ever 24-month tech industry forecast, the sector will increase about 2% in 2017 over 2016, thanks in large part to home automation and drone products moving into broader usage among general consumers. 

“The growing piece of the sector is going to be the emerging categories, products that are new and have new applications. They’re going to pick up and begin having some volume,” Stephen Baker, vice president, industry analyst at NPD, tells Marketing Daily. “We’ve had segments and categories that have been growing [in the past], but either they haven’t had enough appeal to reach beyond early adopters, or they saturate the market so quickly that they’ve stopped growing.”

With wider distribution and broader interest, drone sales will grow 177% from 2016 to 2018, Baker says. Smart home devices will also push further into the mass market, growing 90% over the next two years. 

The NPD Group’s forecast is in line with projections from the Consumer Technology Association, which predicted retail consumer technology revenues of $292 billion in 2017, a 1.5% year-over-year increase over 2016. 

The CTA also cited emerging categories such as smart home devices (which will see a 57% increase in revenue growth in 2017 to $3.5 billion) and drones (43% revenue increase to $1 billion), but also noted technology such as digital assistants (like Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home), virtual- and augmented-reality equipment and continued adoption of ultra-HD television sets as drivers within the category. 

“I expect 2017 to be a year where many of these emerging tech categories find their footing and really take off,” said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist for the CTA, said in a statement. “While still in a period of massive experimentation, we’re increasingly moving away from what is technologically possible and focusing on what is technologically meaningful.”

 

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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