GfK: The global market for consumer durables closes the year struggling with a slowdown

Black Friday has already faced difficult conditions in previous years due to the effects of the pandemic, stock shortages and rising prices. Now, in 2022, the global T&D market will once again face serious challenges. Retailers and manufacturers not only have to deal with the macroeconomic crisis, i.e. runaway inflation, high levels of uncertainty and shrinking consumer budgets, but also market saturation and declining demand due to high bases starting in 2021.

Due to these obstacles, GfK forecasts a slowdown in the global T&D market as a whole by 2022, with an estimated 6-7 percent decline compared to the previous year. Despite the general decline in demand in 2022, the market will be somewhat stabilized by consumers who continue to buy – mainly premium products – despite rising inflation. For example, robotic vacuum cleaners with docking stations (as premium small household appliances) saw more than 100 percent year-over-year growth from January to September 2022, while handheld battery-powered stick vacuums fell 4 percent due to weak demand.