05.20.2008 — Recession. The word may carry connotations of hyperbole (and the declaration of recession may be even more controversial), but one thing is certain — when consumers lack spending confidence, manufacturers, service professionals and distributors, in turn, become a little nervous themselves.

And when all the players in the marketplace have raised a collective eyebrow in this way, good capitalists turn to statistics, the modern-day "sooth-sayer."

The consumer electronics industry is strong. Data from several sources — CE Pro reader surveys, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Parks Associates (a market research and consulting firm), the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and others — attests to claims that despite a broad marketplace slump and a downturn in new-home starts, home technology is healthy.

In fact, it's integrating itself into the lives of more and more Americans every day.

At the same time, it's worth noting that most integration companies are preparing themselves for a slower rate of growth than what was enjoyed in recent history.

Indeed, 30 percent of the readers polled by CE Pro are expecting 2008 to yield sales growth of 5 percent or less. Another 30 percent is expecting growth to be from just 6 percent to 10 percent.

The CEA has a similar outlook for 2008, expecting consumer electronics sales to increase from an estimated 2007 figure of $161.6 billion to $171.5 billion in 2008 — growth of 5.7 percent.

Generally speaking, the hopeful predictions have legs. In the last year (one of the worst, economically, in recent years), the median revenue of those integration companies polled as part of the "2007 CE Pro Readership Study" managed to increase 20 percent over the numbers reported in the same study one year prior.

It was $1,200,000 last year. In 2004, just three years prior, the median revenue was under $700,000. Furthermore, the "Readership Study" reports a 7 percent increase in the number of service contracts and a 6 percent increase in business with distributors.

Even in the area of business hardest hit (that is, the housing market), the home technology trends therein are far from desolate.

According to the CEA, homebuilders reported a 5 percent drop in structured wiring jobs, an 8 percent drop in multiroom audio contracts and a 1 percent drop in home automation projects.

This may not be good, but at the same time, those builders reported a slight increase in other categories, including monitored security, lighting control and energy management.

These increases may not have been huge, but they do forecast a general trend of health and growth in the custom electronics industry.