By Zeba Fatimahp-palmpad-tablet1.jpg

Global spending on consumer electronics should slow down this year, but will still easily top $1 trillion, the Consumer Electronics Association said.

Smartphones, which were the second fastest growing category of electronics worldwide last year, are expected to drive industry sales again this year, the CEA said at its annual industry preview event that helps kick off the group's Consumer Electronics Show.

The CEA and its partner, GfK Boutique Research, expect the growth in spending on smartphones and tablets to slow.

“Most product categories are slowing down or going into contraction,” said GfK Boutique Research director, Steve Bambridge.

GfK and CEA forecast that global spending on technology products will grow 5 % in 2012 to US$1,04 trillion compared to 8 % growth last year and US$993 billion in sales.

GfK and CEA said they expect smartphone sales to grow 22 % this year compared with 59 % last year while overall tablet sales are expected to double to more than 100 million this year.

As demand slackens in the United States and Western Europe grapples with an economic crisis and wobbly euro emerging markets such as Brazil, China and India will increase their share of spending on consumer electronics, GfK and CEA said.

Emerging economies are expected to account for 46 % of global tech sales revenue in 2012, up from 37 % in 2008, while developed economies will see their share fall to 54 % from 63 % over the same period.

Desktop personal computers on the other hand are a category of devices which is “in decline if not completely dead”, said CEA director of industry analysis Steve Koenig.

TV sales expected to plateau 

Television sales, meanwhile, are expected to be flat with whatever growth there is coming from emerging markets. DuBravac said he expects to see more televisions capable of connecting to the Internet as the convergence of the Web and the TV set “evolves quite rapidly”.

DuBravac said 12 % of the TV sets sold in the United States in 2010 were Internet-enabled but nearly half of all televisions shipping in the US in 2012 will be able to tap into the Web.

He said he expected more products to incorporate gesture or voice control features of Microsoft’s Kinect game console or Apple’s iPhone 4S voice assistant Siri providing a “much more natural experience for many users”.