Tech

Bitter 2014 for tablets & phones

Smartphones and iPads are going out of style.

Well, not exactly — but shoppers’ attitudes toward spending on technology overall are less enthusiastic this year, data show.

Even as Microsoft’s Xbox One entertainment console is flying off store shelves, the expectation among shoppers that they will spend less on tech this December compared with last year will likely translate into fewer sales of tablets and smartphones in the coming months, experts said.

For December 2013, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) Index of Consumer Technology Expectations, which measures consumers’ views about technology spending, dropped to 90.2 — its lowest level for the month since the dark days of 2009, when the US was just emerging from the Great Recession.

In 2012, December — a month when spending usually trends higher, thanks to Christmas — the index hit a high of 97.3.

But it’s not just the December data that are cause for concern. Indeed, the index has sagged in nearly every month this year, except for October and November.

Shawn DuBravac, chief economist for the CEA, will be watching the tech-sentiment index closely in 2014 amid expectations that “key areas of growth — namely tablets and smartphones — will begin to slow.”

The reason: oversaturation.

Indeed, some 43 percent of households now own either a tablet or an e-reader, up from 6 percent in 2010 — when Apple started selling the iPad.

Meanwhile, the number of smartphone users has jumped to 56 percent this year, up from 35 percent in 2011, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

“Some of this is just basic arithmetic,” said DuBravac. “The categories are so big that the growth rates by definition are going to slow.”