Consumer electronics

A typical consumer electronics device, a camcorder.

Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver. Later products include personal computers, telephones, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions, calculators, GPS automotive electronics, digital cameras and players and recorders using video media such as DVDs, VCRs or camcorders. Increasingly these products have become based on digital technologies, and have largely merged with the computer industry in what is increasingly referred to as the consumerization of information technology.
The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) estimates 2007 US Consumer Electronics sales at 150 billion dollars.^[1]
Consumer electronics are manufactured throughout the world, although there is a particularly high concentration of headquarters, factories, research and development activity in East Asia, especially in Japan.^[2] The latest consumer electronics are previewed yearly at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, at which many industry pioneers speak.