Mixed Black Friday Week Sales Results Reported By NPD

Black Friday week sales of CE and other consumer technology products fell 3.5 percent from 2009 in the U.S., NPD said. But analyst Stephen Baker said Thursday at the NPD blog site that “the pockets of strength we saw were surprising, and in my view encouraging, at least if [we] are willing to look beyond Dec 25.”

TVs were the brightest spot for the week ended Nov. 27 after weakness “all year” in revenue and unit growth, Baker said. “The category clearly exceeded expectations,” with unit sales up 5 percent and revenue flat with 2009’s Black Friday week, he said. Average selling prices (ASPs) were down only 5 percent from last year, to $503, “despite the heavy emphasis placed on low priced, low feature doorbuster products during the holiday weekend,” he said. The standout performer was the 42-inch product segment, “where strong promotions for both plasma and LCD drove unit sales up 20 percent and ASPs fell about 20 percent in the category to $469,” he said. There were promotions on larger screens, but the sales results indicated consumers weren’t only looking for low-cost flat-panel TVs in the size ranges above 42 inches, he said. Sales were up almost 40 percent from last year in that size range, “with a healthy increase in revenue,” he said.

"Two other bright spots for Black Friday were Blu-ray and detachable lens cameras,” Baker said. Blu-ray player sales “set a record for unit volume during Black Friday week, and were more than 50 percent ahead of last year’s sales with a revenue increase as well,” he said. The sales were driven by a growing number of “full-featured players for under $100 during the holiday,” he said. Lens camera sales were strong, with units up 33 percent. That was “very impressive for a category that has the highest ASP, $703, of any technology category,” Baker said. But he said “those sales were much more in line with the strong results we have seen all year from these products as opposed to being heavily impacted by Black Friday.” IPads and e-readers are among the most in-demand gifts also, he said.

Sales overall “remain a bit weak, as they have been all year,” Baker said, predicting “a challenge in generating enough volume to deliver better results than last year.” The promotional activity we've seen so far “felt very similar to what it has been in the past couple of years, with very strong and aggressively promoted and priced specials early in November,” he said. As in the past two years, the promotions “mostly served to set pricing levels and act as competitive promotions between retailers,” he said.

Not encouraging was that NPD’s Weekly Tracking Service indicated there was “very little impact to the overall results from these promotions, which tend to attract cherry picking, price-focused consumers who buy and leave without purchasing much beyond the special deal of the day,” Baker said. This year, holiday sales are facing “pressures beyond a weak economy, with comparisons against 2009 in some key categories like PCs being very difficult to comp positively against,” he said.

Notebook computer sales fell 7 percent in units from Black Friday week last year after growing 40 percent in 2009 from 2008’s Black Friday week, Baker said. Notebook revenue dipped 4 percent. Desktop computer sales volume fell 11 percent from last year and other categories “suffered” also, “with much less promotion and doorbuster pricing compared to prior years,” he said. But with prices falling to “very low levels” and netbooks being “less prominent this year, some decline was inevitable” in computers, he said.

"Other categories caught in the downdraft” included GPS systems and point-and-shoot cameras, which saw “lackluster results,” Baker said. Camera unit sales tumbled 14 percent from 2009, with revenue down nearly 10 percent. “The only good news” in that category “was a small increase in” the ASP of cameras to $116, “although given the sales results, that was likely the consequence of consumers’ lack of interest in the doorbuster and price-based promotional merchandise,” Baker said. The GPS ASP fell only $10 from last year to $113, but “unit volume was off a miserable 27 percent from 2009, a far comedown from last year’s 14 percent increase in volume,” he said.

On a more encouraging note, Baker said videogame results “are likely to be good,” with Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 and the PlayStation Move for PS3 “apparently getting off to strong starts, and aggressive price cutting being a key feature of Nintendo’s product marketing.” Videogames, along with mobile phones, however, weren’t factored into NPD’s Black Friday week results for consumer technology products, a spokeswoman said.