PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, August 20, 2001 - Despite a softening economy, consumers have been eager to get their hands on the latest consumer electronics. According to leading marketing information provider NPD INTELECT^® Market Tracking, digital television sets, DVD players, personal digital recorders, digital music players and digital cameras have doubled and in some cases tripled in sales during the first half of 2001 when compared with the same period last year. A total of 43 consumer electronics categories tracked in first half (January – June) 2001 experienced growth of 5.7 percent in unit sales, compared to the same period in year 2000.

The video equipment category showed one of the biggest growth spurts during the first half of 2001. Unit sales of digital television sets, primarily high definition TVs, increased 230 percent when compared to the same period one year ago. Personal video recorder (PVRs using TiVO, ReplayTV and UltimateTV systems) unit sales increased 198.5 percent.

The DVD player’s affordable pricing ($205 vs. $273 one year ago) helped to keep the sizzle in the already hot category. Even the VCR, which everyone expected to be replaced by PVRs and DVDs, is doing well. After an all-time record year in 2000, consumers are still snapping up VCR’s at bargain prices to replace the ones they have purchased 10 or 15 years ago.

"If consumer spending is helping to prevent a recession, categories such as home theater system packages that are selling in larger quantities and at a higher selling price are the heroes," said Tom Edwards, NPD INTELECT analyst.

Digital music players and personal CD players were hot sellers in the audio equipment category with unit sales increases in first half 2001 of 58.5 and 47.2 percent respectively. While mini disc has been slow to catch on in the U.S. market, a subset of portable mini disc recorders with a PC interface has grown 319.1 percent.

"Music fans who want to download Internet music or record from CDs have found that mini disc provides an alternative to MP3 recorders and the cost of blank mini disc media is much lower than silicon memory," according to Jim Hirschberg, director of consumer electronics, NPD INTELECT.

In the imaging category, digital cameras and camcorders came out winners in first half 2001. Unit sales of digital cameras skyrocketed 65.5 percent, while conventional still cameras decreased 6.8 percent in unit sales during the same period last year. Camcorders that store information digitally rather than in the conventional analog format increased 43.3 percent. Technology improvements helped reduce the selling price of digital camcorders by $158 compared to last year. Similar to VCR sales, the analog camcorders have not gone away, sales continue to stay at last year’s level.

Hands-free cell phone legislation seems to be having an effect on unit sales of cell phone accessories. During the first half of 2001, headsets and other cell phone accessories grew 49.8 percent in units sold. Interestingly enough, cell phones experienced a marginal increase of 5.6 percent compared to the same period one year ago.