CEA: Industry to Reach $173 Billion in Revenue Next Year

The Consumer Electronics Association issued a forecast Tuesday showing that the industry’s U.S. revenues will top $173 billion in 2008, and $10 billion more than that the following year. The numbers reached that level despite the sluggish economy.

The report, called the U.S. Consumer Electronics Sales and Forecast, projected that revenues will rise 7.3 percent this year, the group said. In a separate projection issued earlier this month, CEA predicted that worldwide revenues of the industry would reach $700 billion by 2009.

“In a tough economy, consumers turn to CE products for many reasons – from entertaining in the home to telecommuting to save gas,” the group’s president and CEO, Gary Shapiro, said as part of the announcement. “Such factors – and access to global consumers through free trade – help the CE industry to flourish while growth rates of other industries have either stalled or declined.”