Five major markets across southeast Asia – Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam – exhibited continuing positive growth in technical consumer goods (TCG) sales in the second quarter of 2012.
According to the latest GfK TEMAX reports, Malaysia turned in the highest growth of 17 per cent in revenue, while the other markets also managed to grow at between two and eight per cent in value over last year.
Malaysia’s second quarter earnings was a result of the buoyant performances posted by six of the seven TCG segments in the country. Telecommunications, office and major domestic appliances in particular saw a value growth in the double-digit range of 38, 17 and 15 per cent respectively.
“A noteworthy observation is the fact that every single one of the tracked markets in the region managed to report expansions in their respective technical consumer goods sector,” said Stanley Kee, MD of GfK for Southeast Asia.
He added that even the recovering economy of Vietnam managed to turn in two per cent growth — an improvement from its previous quarter performance which was in the red.
Information technology was the only one out of the seven segments which stayed in the black across all the countries with growth reported in the range of eight to 30 per cent. Heightened demand for the latest tech gadgets have raised the market worth of the IT segment significantly, especially in Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, where revenues swelled by 30, 29 and 11 per cent respectively.
Telecommunications continues to grow at a rapid rate. With Singapore and Malaysia reporting exponential growth levels of 52 and 38 per cent, the segment boasts the top two highest growth levels achieved among all the TCG segments.
“Consumers’ eager anticipation and fervent adoption of the latest technology in smartphones and tablets have been substantially boosting earnings in telecommunications and IT in the past one year or so,” said Kee.
“Although we are observing slowing growth rates in some markets, these two TCG segments will continue to hold great potential for continued strong growth in the near future,” he added.
