By Patrick Avenell
A surge in DAB+ Digital Radio sales has been attributed to retailers embracing the technology and promoting receivers in the lead-up to major sales events last year.
Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) today revealed a 13.6 per cent increase in DAB+ receiver sales volumes year-on-year for calendar 2012, bringing the total number of digital radio sales since launch to almost 1.2 million. This sales growth far outweighed the overall electronics market, which only grew 2.4 per cent.
The impetus to purchase DAB+ units has been attributed, in part, to promotional activity with retailers in the lead-up to Mother’s Day and Christmas Day.
“The industry developed targeted ads for the 2012 Mother’s Day retail cycle, which included a tag for Dick Smith and Myer,” said a CRA spokesperson. “These two retailers ran special promotional activity for the DAB+ category in-store, online and in catalogues.
“The campaign resulted in digital radio sales of 75,000 in that quarter.”
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This promotion was then expanded to include more retailers for the Christmas period.
“The radio industry teamed up with national retailers for the 2012 Christmas campaign offering a ‘buy one get one free’ offer,” continued the spokesperson.
“A series of four radio ads tagging Dick Smith, Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi played across 42 commercial radio stations in the five state metropolitan markets. All stores from the three participating retailers were involved in the promotion.
“The strong consumer offer saw the most successful Christmas/New Year retail period to date with sales of almost 193,000 digital devices.”
It was not all good news for the DAB+ category, however, with CRA reporting that the average sales price of receivers declined more than 15 per cent, year-on-year, to $86.