Press Release: Consumer Electronics Ownership, Spending in Brazil Ranks Highest Among 8 Countries; Tops China, Germany and the U.S.

Accenture | April 27, 2011 | Press Release

RIO DE JANEIRO; April 27, 2011– According to Accenture (NYSE: ACN) research across eight countries, Brazilians have the highest consumer electronics ownership and spending in 15 product categories. More than half (55 percent) of Brazilian consumers have bought a mobile phone during the past year, compared to the international survey average of 32 percent. Similarly, 40 percent of Brazilian consumers plan to buy HDTVs this year compared to 25 percent internationally; and 20 percent intend to buy 3DTVs this year compared to 12 percent internationally.

“Brazilian consumers are outpacing the rest of the world’s consumers in electronics usage and spending,” said Petronio Nogueira, senior executive with Accenture’s Communications and High-Tech Group. “Now as never before, Brazil has become a global epicenter for consumer electronics business opportunities.”

Consumers in Brazil also posted the highest percentages of mobile phone ownership (89 percent), DVDs (79 percent), TVs (69 percent) and netbooks (32 percent) of consumers in the survey. They also ranked the highest among all countries in the purchase of HDTVs (28 percent), digital photo cameras (28 percent), netbooks (19 percent), global positioning satellite systems (GPS) (15 percent), portable music players (12 percent) and game consoles (12 percent). This same group ranked highest overall in purchases of GPS systems (18 percent) and game consoles (8 percent).

Enthusiasm among Brazilians for consumer electronics devices in the workplace is especially intense among 18-to-27 year olds — the “Millennial” generation. Two-thirds (66 percent) of 18-to-22 year olds expect to use their consumer devices of their own choice at work—a higher percentage than Millennials in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

Despite the strong demand, there are challenges in the Brazilian retail channel. Only 38 percent of Brazilians hold a favorable impression of their communications service providers based on their experiences in the providers’ retail stores—well below the international average of 55 percent. Only 22 percent rated providers as performing “well” or “very well” in the “speed of services in the store”; and a mere 20 percent rated them as performing well or very well in providing them with the “opportunity to try products in the store.”

Yet Brazilians highly value the retail experience. Sixty percent indicated the quality of the store experience is a major factor in their decision to do business with a particular provider. By contrast, an international average of only 38 percent cited this as a major factor.

Brazilian companies are on par with firms in other countries in their use of customer analytics for marketing, sales and customer services. But these firms have room for advancement in using such analytics for pricing, delivery and new product development. Only 9 percent of Brazilian executives use data from third-party providers— lowest among the countries surveyed by Accenture, which also included Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States; and a mere 12 percent use input from social media channels—again the lowest percentage among executives surveyed.

“The enthusiasm of consumers in Brazil is clearly being dampened by their discontent with the consumer retail store experience,” added Nogueira with Accenture. “Yet, at the same time retailers are struggling to keep pace with consumer demand and keep their customers happy and are not leveraging customer analytics as much as they should.”

The Accenture research compiled in this release stems from four separate surveys:

The eight-country online consumer survey, titled “Finding Growth: Emergence of a new Consumer Technology Paradigm,” was conducted in October and November of 2010. More than 8,000 respondents were asked about usage and spending regarding 20 technologies such as computers, smartphones, and tablet computers. For a copy of the complete set of survey findings, please visit www.accenture.com/ConsumerTech2011.

“The Value, Role and Performance of the Physical Retail Channel for Communications Service Companies and Providers’ Perspectives” was a survey conducted between December 2009 and January 2010. It included more than 3,000 consumers in 18 countries who used telecom services. For a copy of the survey findings, please visit http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-role-retail-channel-communications-summary.aspx.

Coleman Parks Research, in cooperation with Accenture, surveyed corporate executives on their use of analytics.

The Millennial survey, conducted in February 2010, is titled “Jumping the Boundaries of Corporate IT: Accenture’s

Global Research on Millennial’s Use of Technology. For a copy of that survey’s findings, please visit http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-millennials-technology-overview.aspx.

A report titled, “Always On. Always Connected. Are You Ready? Keeping Pace with Consumer Demand for Technology in Brazil” summarizes many of the results sited in this release. It also includes insights from the Accenture Institute of High Performance, secondary research, and findings from Accenture’s extensive experience working hand-in-hand with companies operating in, and entering into, the Brazilian market. For a copy of the report, please visithttp://www.accenture.com/braziltech.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 215,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.  Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments.  The company generated net revenues of US$21.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2010.  Its home page is www.accenture.com.