Digital radio sales surge past 1m mark
 

Julia Day, radio correspondent
Friday January 21, 2005

Sales of digital radios have passed the 1m mark with the number of sets sold
at Christmas doubling year-on-year.

There are now 1.2m digital radio sets in Britain, with predictions that
another 1.2m will be sold this year.

This beats the 1m target set by the Digital Radio Development Bureau at the
beginning of 2004.

Official sales figures for December are not yet available but the John Lewis
Partnership director of buying, Dan Knowles, said sales of digital radios at
his stores were up by 57%.

The Dixons managing director, Nick Woods, said: "Radio renaissance in the UK
brought about by the development of digital radio technology has gathered
pace this year."

And the gap between sales of analogue radios and DAB digital models is
closing fast.

One retailer reported that digital radios accounted for 30% of radios sold
at Christmas, compared with Christmas 2003 when digital sets made up only
15% of sales in comparison with 85% of the market for analogue sets.

The DRDB chief executive, Ian Dickens, said the group forecast a further
1.2m sets would be sold in 2005:
"In a Christmas season, where retailers struggled in traditional sales
arenas, everything digital sold well with DAB digital radio sales more than
doubling year-on-year," added the DRDB marketing director Mike Spencer.

The surge in sales of digital radios was boosted by an explosion in the
types of products available - from 53 in 2003 to more than 130 in 2004.

The price for the cheapest set halved to around £50, making the sets more
affordable to mass market consumers.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/radio/st...395706,00.html