CES: CEA Prez Optimistic Despite Expected Flat Growth

Consumer electronics sales are expected to be flat for this year, but we’ve seen crises before and the CE industry is in a good position to help pull us out of this economic quagmire. That was the message today from CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro in his address just before opening keynoter Howard Stringer of Sony took the stage.

“Each crisis seems extraordinary,” said Shapiro, who said he took over as head of CEA during a down time.

The upside, he said, is that the CE industry saw 6 percent revenue growth in 2008, and the net worth of U.S. households is a whopping $56 trillion.

Mentioning the central role of radio in entertaining and educating the populous during the Great Depression, Shapiro also noted that the CE and overall entertainment industry occupy a unique position to rally the spirits of people during this downturn and to actually turn things around. And helping affect that turnaround will be the innovation in CE, he said, noting that 20,000 new products will be unveiled at CES this week.

“Our industry is resilient,” he said. “We will lead the way.”

If the Obama administration wants to help the CE industry with that, he said, it will ensure “the best and brightest” can get H-1B visas and not encourage unionization.

CEA is launching an advertising campaign promoting a checklist it believes the government should keep in mind when creating regulations relative to CE. The checklist goes something like this:

• Does it create jobs?
• Does it spur new technology?
• Does it encourage participation by the best and brightest?
• Does it reward risk taking?
• Does it help deploy broadband?

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