A leading car audio supplier said its retail specialists are up 28 percent since mid April and a half dozen other suppliers told us they agree with that figure.
The Mobile Electronics Association (MEA) published its own estimates. It said specialists’ sales were up 21 percent in June year over year, and July figures, not fully tallied, are likely to exceed that. Earlier in the pandemic, May sales were up 12 percent and April was down 29 percent, said the MEA.
If you agree with the 28 percent figure, that translates to an extra $23 million in sales from mid-April through June, enjoyed by 12 volt specialists. The calculations are based on recent SEMA estimates, which found that specialist/installers comprise about 12 percent of the car audio market and the total market falls at about $3 billion at retail annually (excluding ADAS, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems).
We should also note that one top supplier said its business with specialists is up more than 50 percent, because it has good inventory levels.
At a time when 100,000 small businesses closed nationally during the pandemic, car audio specialists have seen unusual gains.
Are home audio integrators seeing the same boom? We asked CE Pro magazine Senior Editor Robert Archer, who said, “Yes, surprisingly the custom install market is up. Our readers are doing a lot of outdoor AV systems, networks, home theater, and we are expecting that shortly they will start to leverage the demand for collaboration systems because of working from home. Beyond that, people, after being stuck at home, have realized they have home systems that need updates or were never really up to snuff to begin with, so that is driving some immediate business.”
And like car audio, custom audio integrators are also seeing product shortages. He said, “I am hearing that products such as AV receivers and 4K TVs are in demand.”
Chris Cook of the Mobile Electronics Association believes that car audio will see a permanent bump in sales due to the increased consumer awareness car audio has seen during the pandemic, but not as big a spike as in the recent couple of months.
“The permanent bump comes from the fact that [retailers] saw so many new customers and they had the opportunity to impress them and get returning customers. That’s where I think the bump will be permanent, although not the same. I also don’t want to discount how much press the retailers got making face shields. That was all over the news. It certainly provided awareness. I imagine there’s quite a few consumers who said, ‘I didn’t know that retailers do that kind of stuff.'”
