After a slight downturn in 2017, the Italian technical consumer goods market began to grow again last year, with an increase in turnover of +3%. According to GfK (data detected using the Retail Panel methodology), the total market value rose from € 14.3 billion in 2017 to € 14.7 billion in 2018. A significant result, because it is the highest level reached by the market since 2010. If sales in traditional stores remain unchanged compared to last year (+0.5%), the online channel continues to grow at double-digit (+20%), representing – at the end of 2018 – 14.6% of value sales. The positive performance of the Telecommunications segment (+6.7%) drives the growth: at the end of 2018, this sector generated 39% of the total value of the Italian technical consumer goods market. There was also a growth trend for the major domestic appliances (+3%) and small domestic appliances (+2.5%), which accounted for respectively 14.4% and 9.1% of the total market. The Information Technology/Office Equipment sector also grew (+1.5%), remaining the second in importance with a share of 19.2%. Consumer electronics (Audio and Video) recorded a small decrease (-0.4%) compared to 2017, while the photography sector slowed down more significantly (-3.6%). The results of the Home Comfort (-11.9%) and Media Storage (-15.2%) sectors are decidedly more negative: they however represent a small share of the Italian market. Finally, the products that in 2018 contributed most to the growth in terms of turnover were: smartphones, vacuum cleaners, dryers, headsets and televisions. The common factor, among all these products, is the success of the Premium appliances, which continue to grow driven by new technologies.
