The worldwide electrical and electronics industry is the most flourishing and extremely diversified sector consisting of manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, retailers, electrical engineers, electricians, electronic equipment manufacturers, and trade unions. This sector has been growing at a rapid pace with the invention of innovative technologies and an ever-increasing customer inclination towards electronics goods and services.

The global electrical and electronics market is worth $1,038.8 billion, which is forecasted to grow to $ 1,216.8 billion in the year 2008. As far as production statistics are concerned, the electrical and electronics industry accounted for $1,025.8 billion in 2006, which is expected to reach $1,051.5 billion in the coming years.


Size of the Industry
United States, Japan and Korea are the top three electrical and electronic goods manufacturing country in the world. The United States of America is the largest producer of electronic products in the world, contributing a total share of around 21%. Furthermore, it also occupies the largest market share with about 29% in the global market.

The World's electrical and electronics market size was $1038.8 billion in 2006, an increase of 10.6% from the last year. The industrial electronics industry size was $651.3 billion, contributing around 62.7% of the total. With regard to electronics parts and components sector, the total market share was $282.7 billion i.e. 27.2% while home electronics was $ 104.7 billion.

Sony Corporation, Apple Inc., Sharp Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., LG Electronics Inc., Royal Philips Electronics N.V, SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics Co. Limited are the key players of electrical and electronic products in the world market.

Outlook of the World's Electronics Market by Segment

Classification	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Home Use	84,043	93,658	104,753	108,222	112,119	116,221	119,201
Industrial Use	571,363	602,176	651,300	668,857	695,073	730,928	759,386
Information Device	256,368	267,247	291,180	299,587	312,440	330,834	345,131
Communication Device	197,648	207,592	221,017	227,111	236,583	248,424	258,307
Office Devices	10,959	11,019	55,596	11,626	11,669	11,735	11,779
Others	106,388	116,289	127,507	130,533	134,381	139,935	144,169
Electronics Parts	223,016	243,170	282,770	289,353	300,781	321,439	338,308
Total	878,422	939,004	1,038,823	1,066,432	1,107,973	1,168,588	1,216,895

Key Segments of Electrical and Electronics Industry
The global electrical and electronics sector is highly fragmented, comprising of various auxiliary sectors namely electronic components, computer and office equipment, telecommunications, consumer electronics and industrial electronics.

Electronic Components Industry: comprises of various establishments engaged in designing, manufacturing, marketing, supporting, selling and distributing of broad range of electronic components such as bolts, clamps, fasteners, rivets, lighting, semi conductors, integrated circuits, microprocessors, cables and wires, switches, sensors, keyboards, sockets, timing devices, laser modules, sonar devices, test and inspection equipment, scientific and technical instruments etc. US, Japan, Europe, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are the leading markets of electronic components in the world. Semiconductor sector is the largest and highly profitable sector. The global semiconductor industry is worth $248 billion, of which China accounts for $ 63 billion. China, United States and Japan are the largest semiconductor producing countries in the world.

Computer and Office Equipment Industry: consists of various establishments engrossed in manufacturing and supplying of assorted range of computer hardware, peripherals, software and office equipment. Presently, United States, Japan and Europe occupies leading positions in manufacturing of computer and office equipment. The United States computer and office equipment industry constitute of more than 10,000 companies with collective annual revenue of US $180 billion.

Telecommunications Industry: can be divided into two main sub sectors i.e. communications equipment and communication services. The United States of America is considered to be the leading market in the world for communications equipment, which contributed around $95 billion in 2006. Telephony and terminals equipment is one of the dominant sectors of this industry with a market share of almost 80%. China, Taiwan, United Kingdom, South Korea and Belguim are the top exporters of telecommunications equipment in the world. Another important sub sector of telecommunications industry is communication services, which earned revenue of 55.6% last year.

Consumer Electronics Industry: constitutes of units involved in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and distributing of audio, video and games products. Some of the consumer electronics products are televisions, stereos, speakers, video recorders, CD players, radios, cameras, wireless devices, kitchen appliances etc. This industry is experiencing an astounding and phenomenal growth over the past few years. The size of the global consumer electronics industry was $ 135.4 billion in 2006, which is forecasted to reach $158.4 billion in the year 2008.

Industrial Electronics Industry: is made up of various establishments committed to designing, developing, manufacturing and selling of broad range of electronic components and systems used in equipment and automated processes serving in an industrial environment.

Major Production and Export Centers
Western Europe is gradually developing as new global hub for the electronics manufacturing industry in the world. Comprising of 16 countries, the West European electronics market contributes around 22% of the global market share. Simultaneously, electronics market in Eastern Europe in 2006 was $ 9 billion, which is forecasted to jump to $ 24 billion in 2013.

In Asia Pacific region, Japan, Korea China, Taiwan, India and Singapore are the principal manufacturing hubs for electrical and electronics products. China is becoming the manufacturing region of electronic products on the globe. The key electronics manufacturing destinations are Guangdong province, South Jiangsu, Shanghai and eastern part of Zhejiang.

In United States of America, New York, Atlanta, Colorado, Detroit, Florida, New England, San Diego, San Francisco, and Texas are the major industrial hubs of electronics industry.

Presently, the electronic products manufacturing is expanding on an unprecedented scale in Asian region and deflating in the Americas and Europe. In year 2002, Asia occupied 41% of total electronics market share, which has now risen to 56% in 2007.

Regional Manufacturing in 2002

Regional Manufacturing in 2007

Factors Governing the Growth of this Industry
The key factors governing the growth of electrical and electronics industry are as follows:

• Rising and continuous investments in research and development has led to increased productivity and higher-value added electrical and electronics products.
  
  
• Increased foreign investments have resulted in the accelerated growth in terms of electronics production and exports. Foreign companies are now making huge investments and are installing extensive production capacities in developing countries.
  
  
• Extends support to several global industries namely medical, telecommunications, industrial and automotive sectors.
  
  
• Rising incomes and living standards have resulted in the increase in demand of electronics especially consumer electronics products in the world.
  
  
• This industry is highly fragmented which comprises of many small and medium size enterprises.
  
  
• Asia Pacific region is emerging as the most spinning place for the consumer electronics industry, as the markets remain still unbroached.
  
  
• Rapid pace of innovation in electronics technology is resulting in a consistent demand for newer and faster products and applications.

Future Outlook
The worldwide electrical and electronics industry is experiencing phenomenal and remarkable changes these days. The worldwide electronics industry is distinguished by fast technological advances and has grown rapidly than most other industries over the past 30 years.

Voluminous production is slowly and gradually moving towards low cost destinations, which in turn are the markets which offer the most long term potential. In today's age of competition, electronic and electrical products manufacturing companies are under constant pressure to develop new and innovative products in shorter time cycles, at reduced cost, and with improved quality.

The global electronics industry is driven by demand for the products, which are durable, lighter, cheaper, and better than the ones, they replace. To meet up the growing market demands, industry is slowly and gradually shifting its base to Asia Pacific countries, which is now the prominent source of electronic components and is soon going to turn out to be the primary destination for consumer electronics. There is an estimation that within 20 years, two third of the electronics industry will be four times as big as today and half of it will move into Asia.



Foreign collaborations and mergers are on a rise. A new wave of industrialization is throwing up several business opportunities for electrical and electronics market to further its market. There is a vast growth in the sales of computers, software and networking products. Younger generation is increasing becoming tech savvy and spending huge amount of money on digital products such as MP3 players, Dvd players, CD players, mobile phones, speakers, headphones etc.

The future seems prosperous for this electrical & electronics industry in terms of the expected surge in global demand and upsurge in investments. Many trends such as over-capacity in developed markets, globalization, technology advances, regulation and environmental consideration, market fragmentation and product proliferation will lead to the accelerated growth of this sector.