Under the category 'technical consumer goods', GFK tracks consumer electronics, domestic appliances, digital cameras, IT and mobile phones.
Countries surveyed were Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. All but Singapore achieved double-digit expansion.
Indonesia's technical consumer goods market showed the strongest growth, with 30 per cent, overtaking Vietnam (17 per cent) which was the higehst growth market for the previous two quarters.
"Among the five countries, Indonesia was the only market that showed consistent positive growth across all the technical consumer goods sectors GFK tracks,” said Stanley Kee, regional commercial director for GFK Asia. “Its telecommunication sector grew by a whopping 39 per cent, making it the highest growth record across the board for the first quarter of the year versus the same time period last year.”
GFK also found that telecommunications has surpassed small domestic appliances as the best performing category with 22 per cent growth, followed by major domestic appliances and consumer electronics at 20 and 15 per cent respectively.
"The current hype surrounding smartphones has been stimulating sales and driving the performance of the telecommunication industry considerably,” commented Mr. Kee.
