Icecat.biz, January 11, 2011: The online channel expands strongly with 78% in 2010 and is recession-proof. HP, Lenovo and Sony are the top three online channels brands of 2010, but DELL has transformed into a fast-growth channel brand and will cause more trouble in the years to come. Although notebooks, warranty/support and desktops still dominate, products for security, fun and smaller form factors are changing the game. Among fast-growth categories are also household/white goods, showing the rise of brick & click ecommerce by traditional retailers.
Online channel expands with 78%
The activity of the online channel as measured by ICEcat has expanded in 2010 with 78% compared to 2009. During 2010. Icecat facilitated 874 million data-sheet downloads (DDs) for products from 5228 different tech brands by more than 12,700 different online channel partners from 87 different countries.
Notebooks, Warranty/support and Desktops still dominant in online channel
The online channel is in 2010 like in 2009 still dominated by Notebooks (10.9% DDs share), Warranty/support extensions (6.4%) and the good old Desktop-PCs (4.7%). In the top 10, the biggest change is that toner & laser cartridges and other ink supplies become more prominent.
During 2010 processors (+104% growth) and LCD TVs (+153%) are performing relatively strong. The latter, of course because of the World Cup in South-Africa, a one-time effect. A top 10 category that is relatively weak is hard disk drives, probably because of the strong competition by usb (flash) drives (+162%).
Cable locks, Game software and Netbooks outperformers
Is nothing changing then in the online channel? Less is true. The most prominent IT-categories that make the biggest progress in the top 100 are cable locks (+1250% increase in DDs), game software (+236%), and netbooks (+193%), respectively security, fun and smaller form factors. Long-term, game software may have trouble being sold via the online channel as direct downloads will canibalize box shipments. The continued development of netbooks is hardly hampered by the iPad effect. The actual use of netbooks is probably too different from that one of tablets, which are used during meetings for one-to-few presentations.
White good brands: resistance to online is futile
More surprising is the fast growth in household categories like cookers & ovens (+340%) and refrigerators (+189%), although these categories just entered the top 100 at the lower end. It shows that the online channel is not just about IT, Telecom and consumer electronics, but also about white goods. This trend is related to the brick & click strategies of major retailers, like Media Markt/Saturn, and the increasing awareness of white good brands that resistance to the online hive is futile.
DELL and Pelikan most prominent rising channel stars
In the top 10 fast-growth channel brands DELL (+436% relative increase in DDs) is the most prominent one. While DELL was just outside the top 100 in 2009 (ranked 109), it reached rank 40 in 2010. If the computer maker continues the same fast growth pace, it will be a top 15 channel brand in 2011, and it would take another year (2012) before it becomes a serious contender for other computer makers like Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba.
Similarly promising is the development of supplies brand Pelikan (+546%) in 2010. It made an even bigger jump than DELL from rank 131 to 44, and it is now the best-performing provider of compatible ink cartridges. The major printing companies will not like it as ink supplies form their margin makers!
Advanced Cable Technology (ACT, +3797%), Lindy (+1563%) and Vivanco (+1147%) are the top three fast movers in the top 100 of brands measured by Icecat. The relative success of ACT is a reapeat of the one of CablesToGo, and is linked to the increased online demand for networking supplies. Also the story of Lindy and Vivanco is about networking technology more and more distributed via the internet.
HP, Lenovo and Samsung made the biggest absolute progress
In absolute terms HP (+116.6 Mio DDs), Lenovo (+9.1 Mio DDs) and Samsung (+8.4 Mio DDs) made the biggest progress in terms of data-sheet downloads by the online channel. Lenovo was able to claim the number two position in the online channel, bypassing consumer electronics behemoth Sony.
HP's lead over the rest of the pack is still staggering: almost 29% (=252 Mio DDs) of the data-sheets downloaded are related to an HP product. The new number two in the online channel, Lenovo serves "only" 2.5% of the requested data-sheets (=22 Mio DDs), less than 10% of the traffic that HP is generating. Number three, Sony, is close behind Lenovo with 2.3% of the requested data-sheet downloads
The other major brands in the top 10 fast-growth brands (in absolute terms) that are doing well, although less well than HP and Lenovo, are: Fujitsu (+8.2 Mio DDs), Sony (+7.0 Mio DDs), Lexmark (+6.8 Mio DDs), Canon (+6.8 Mio DDs), Acer (+6.7 Mio DDs), Epson (+6.4 Mio DDs) and Toshiba (+6.1 Mio DDs). All computer and printer vendors, who perform well in the after-the-recession bounce-back in IT market.
About the Icecat Online Channel Update:
What method do we use to gather data about data-sheet downloads (DDs)?
We combine two methods:
1) End user popularity (pull): We provide real-time services to ecommerce sites: around 50% of our data comes from real-time (end-user) downloads.
2) Catalog popularity (push): Larger ecommerce sites just download the data-sheets that they need once. This counts for the other 50% of our data.
The combination of both figures gives a very balanced view. Because, only end-user popularity creates a picture which is often too extreme, over-stating certain trends.
Catalog popularity is heavily influenced by what's actually on stock. Stock is major influencer - both B2B and B2C - for what's actually sold online. Only catalog popularity would focus too much on current sales, not future demand.
When we compare our data with that of manufacturer sales-out, we consistently find a very high correlation with their actual market shares (per category) or (future) sales trends.
About the Icecat Online Channel Update:
What method do we use to gather data about data-sheet downloads (DDs)?
We combine two methods:
1) End user popularity (pull): We provide real-time services to ecommerce sites: around 50% of our data comes from real-time (end-user) downloads.
2) Catalog popularity (push): Larger ecommerce sites just download the data-sheets that they need once. This counts for the other 50% of our data.
The combination of both figures gives a very balanced view. Because, only end-user popularity creates a picture which is often too extreme, over-stating certain trends.
Catalog popularity is heavily influenced by what's actually on stock. Stock is major influencer - both B2B and B2C - for what's actually sold online. Only catalog popularity would focus too much on current sales, not future demand.
When we compare our data with that of manufacturer sales-out, we consistently find a very high correlation with their actual market shares (per category) or (future) sales trends.
About Icecat NV
ICEcat NV is an independent worldwide provider of product content and market intelligence, part of the iMerge BV ecommerce group. Today, there are more than ICEcat 1 million product data-sheets of more than 5,000 brands, extensively described in 30 world languages. The data-sheets are used worldwide in more than 12.000 websites: online shops, ERP systems, comparison sites, purchase systems and other applications. The usage of data-sheets generates the statistics that are used in this report.
Open ICEcat is an open catalog project on the basis of the Open Content License Agreement by which product content from over 230 top technology brands are distributed for free (see: http://www.icecat.biz/menu/partners/index.htm).
More info
- Icecat 2010 report http://icecat.biz/get_attachment.cgi?5555
- Icecat 2010, top 2500 brands http://icecat.biz/get_attachment.cgi?5554
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