Technology Today - CES 2018 Looking forward

Technology Today - March 2018 Looking at CES and Forward..

By Robert Sanborn

I have to admit, looking at all the cool stuff, and often the silly stuff, makes CES a show worth visiting. Besides being incredibly enormous with my health app telling me I am hitting 12,500 steps a day; they did a terrific job in splitting up the show in manageable venues so at least I got to relax going from one massive hall to the next. And the CTA (Consumer Technology Association) does a great job in helping us see the future as well and their forecasts for 2018 while eye-popping in one regard to the massive amounts of money will be spent on consumer technology, is also telling in how little growth there is in some surprising areas. You can see their report at: www.cta.tech/salesandforecasts

The biggest news is in speakers, not for your computer, not for you to listen to music from your portable device (which are now near nonexistent) or smartphone, and not for your home theater. So what is left you might ask and the answer is Alexa and Echo to name the top two. $3.8 billion will be spent on 43.6 million speakers which means if you don’t have one or two in your home, you soon will have. It will be a 60% increase from last year.

The biggest sales leader for 2018 will be smartphones as companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, LG, and my favorite, Huawei try to convince you to buy a new one this year. How about $62.9 billionin revenue on 189 million units which, with a very minor drum roll, is a 2% increase over 2017.

Other big leaders in technology will be Smart Home products 41% increase; Drones with a 20% increase; and Virtual Reality with a 25% increase in units shipped. The laggards will be Wearables with a 4% increase; Laptops 3% increase; and Digital Displays (monitors and televisions) 2% increase.

Finally, what is also surprising is the trend for cord cutting from cable television as Streaming Services will increase 35% this year to an incredible $19.5 billion. So, are you changing with the technology?

Robert Sanborn