As tech industry leaders gather for an annual extravaganza showcasing hot new products, political uncertainty is casting a cloud over the sector.
The election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum are among the factors weighing on the outlook. And a strong US dollar may cut into spending for many consumers around the world.
With the Consumer Electronics Show kicking off this week in Las Vegas, the organizers are predicting that industry revenue would shrink for the fourth consecutive year.
Consumer Technology Association senior director of market research Steve Koenig revealed the forecast Tuesday, predicting the amount of money people around the world spend on smartphones and other gadgets this year would tally $929 billion as compared to $950 billion in 2016.
Koenig said the "underpinning" of the global forecast was "uncertainty with the election of Trump and with Brexit."
It's the end of the world as we know it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @06:40AM
Just in case you weren't joking:
Probability(will plunge | was rising to record heights) != Probability(was rising to record heights | did plunge)