During Black Friday week, tablets were the second highest revenue generating category and unit volumes increased by 105 percent and overall PC and tablet sales increased by 58 percent to almost 5.9 million units, according to IT research firm NPD.
For the first time in three years, U.S. consumer electronics sales, both online and in retail stores, increased double digits during Black Friday week.
Overall sales increased 10 percent to nearly $5 billion the week of Black Friday, with televisions, tablets, and notebooks accounting for $3.1 billion of the overall revenue.
Similar to last year’s results, TVs were the largest revenue generator with more than $1.4 billion in sales, up 5.6 percent over last year. Unit volumes soared nearly 16 percent to more than 4.7 million units, due in part to record low average selling prices (ASP) on smaller screen TVs.
Notebooks unit volume fell 2 percent, while desktops experienced a 7 percent increase. The report noted Apple had a strong holiday week as it participated more aggressively in Black Friday sales promotions than ever before– sales were up 34 percent in notebooks, 51 percent in tablets and 277 percent in desktops.
Android-based tablets saw unit volumes climb 146 percent, and revenues jump 70 percent, although selling prices dropped from $151 to $105.
Seven-inch Android tablets, which accounted for 80 percent of all Android tablet sales, sold 1.8 million units with an ASP of $82.
Meanwhile, Windows devices grew 8 percent as the strong Surface promotion and the introduction of smaller Windows tablet sales offset the declines of 8 percent and 9 percent in desktops and notebooks.
“We are beginning to see emerging product categories contribute significantly to the overall market growth, Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD, said in a statement. “For example, headphones didn’t break into 2010’s top 50, but they were the fourth largest revenue category in 2013. The most significant sign of positive holiday momentum is that all of the top five categories delivered positive revenue in 2013.”
Two-thirds of all the categories with more than $30 million in sales revenue grew over last year, suggesting there were significant contributions from some of the newer product categories.
“Strong promotions, new players, new product categories; these were all the things the industry needed after several stagnant years,” Baker continued. “Holiday sales growth is an important momentum builder for 2014. However, it is important to remember that with much of the volumes driven by heavy promotion, similar outcomes in 2014 are much more uncertain.”