Consumer tech revenue projected to grow 4% to $351 billion, helped by streaming and smart speakers

The Consumer Technology Association has released new projections for tech sales in the U.S. Retail revenue from the consumer technology industry in 2018 is estimated to reach $351 billion, up 3.9% from the previous year. The report, released ahead of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, also examined some product segments of interest, such as streaming and smart speakers.

The CTA found that consumer spending on both video and audio on-demand streaming is valued at $19.5 billion in revenue. That total is up 35% from 2017. The streaming revenue is a big contributor to overall growth in tech revenue; if it was excluded, the total industry revenue would have only risen 2.2%.

For smart speakers, CTA projected 2018 unit sales of 43.6 million units, up 60% from 2017. Revenue for the segment is expected to grow 93% to $3.8 billion. Smart speakers are also leading a boost in overall smart home products, which are expected to see 40.8 million units sold (up 41%) for revenue of $4.5 billion. British firm Canalys recently published its own assessment of the smart speaker market. On a global scale, it projected that smart speaker sales would reach 56.3 million shipments.

Anna Washenko