The pandemic has had and will have long drawn impacts upon the lives of people and the socio-economic factors at large. Consumer behaviour and demand-supply patterns have exhibited real-time changes while the e-commerce industry has seen continued growth!

We are here to discuss and analyse the trends of consumer electronics due to the Covid-19 pandemic. What have you been observing all through this time? Be it your own family, friends, neighbours, or colleagues – they are all moving online to collect all that they need! The point of discussion in this write up is – how much of those ‘essentials’ include consumer electronic devices?

Impact upon consumer demand at the start of the pandemic

The pandemic period so far may be segmented and let’s recollect the start of those bewildering days. The online grocery stores almost ran out of stock so far as tissues, towelettes, toiletries and other essentials were concerned. Those days and the times ahead too ensured that personal safety, food and medical security preceded any other need in the common man’s life! Demand, or rather, the panic-buying of hygiene products, medicines, and food items shot up to the extent of creating an artificial crisis of these products in the market!

Changes in work culture, lifestyle, and other demand patterns

As the days progressed, other important aspects cropped up, and they too adapted themselves to a lot of CHANGE. Work-culture across economies have been one of the primary things which have undergone significant changes. Entrepreneurs have closed their offices which has considerably cut down the costs on office-infrastructure. Business owners, therefore, have not only adapted to the new work culture but welcomed it too. This, indeed, has reflected upon the consumer electronics market.

COVID-19 resulted in too many alterations. It changed people’s choice of leisure. Since holidaying, partying, club visits, family gatherings, etc. were halted for an unknown period, app downloads faced a surge in demand. Apps for healthcare, gaming and other entertainment, music and movie, kids care, etc. were downloaded by billions of smartphone users. However, apps to fight depression resulting from isolation and home quarantine norms are on the rise too.

Telemedicine and teleconsultation with medical experts have popularized over this period! Even the education sector embraced the online model and post lockdown, smartphone became less of a luxury but more of a necessity.

On that note, the smartphone industry did not see a considerable growth, perhaps, the buyers are reluctant due to the growing economic uncertainty or they have mostly chosen to buy new phones post the pandemic period. This could also be since the long-awaited 5G network is yet to be launched! Perhaps people are planning to buy their choicest phones only when the ‘perfect network speed for at-home streaming’ is available for them.

Why have the demand for laptops & other electronic goods surged?

It’s commonly understood why the demand for laptops and laptop accessories have soared high even amidst this pandemic and the world-wide socio-economic crisis! Businesses have closed their office doors and welcomed the work-from-home norm; students, on the other hand, have begun to adapt well to the remote learning process from the comforts of their study, hence, supply of laptops has more often fallen short of the growing demand! Schools in many states have decided to equip their students with laptops and have availed the season’s retail sales to make those bulk purchases.

According to the market surveying authorities, only laptops are expected to withstand the pandemic and in fact, perform better, as far as sales figures are concerned. There are other computing devices such as desktops and tablets – they have faced with a sharp fall in consumer demand. Laptops, quite reasonably, are portable and have a wide range of functionality to fit in to any use. Therefore, laptops happen to be one of those consumer electronic devices, which has not only weathered the 2020 pandemic but also contributed to the growth of the electronic gadget industry in this period of economic tumult!

Besides laptops, television is yet another consumer electronic, which has experienced a sales boom in the pandemic period. People remaining indoors round the clock have increased the number of TV watchers in each household. This same logic applies to the sales hike of other products like video games, music systems, entertainment gadgets like headsets, speakers, home theatres, and so on!