"This year, we will spend over 85 billion dollars on consumer electronics products in the U.S. and a significant portion of that at the holidays."
Jim Barry of the Consumer Electronics Association. The products most in demand? A survey conducted by the association finds...
"This year for the first time at the top of many lists is digital video disc players, DVD players. They've really taken off in the last two years. Prices now start well under two hundred dollars. There are about ten thousand movies available to rent or purchase. So DVDs are at the top of the list for the first time. Another thing that is near the top of a lot of folk's lists are digital cameras. Again, digital cameras are something new in just the last few years but this year we'll probably buy three or four million digital cameras."
Prices have gotten lower and the pictures have gotten better. Casio even makes a digital camera built into a wristwatch. Digital movies. Digital photographs...
"Another thing, a really interesting thing I think for the first time this year on a lot of gift wish lists are digital music players."
There isn't a lot of demand yet for high definition TVs... but look for prices to fall... and demand to rise in the next couple of years. Bootcamp, I'm Fred Fishkin, Bloomberg Radio.