Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. In British English they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers.

Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver. Later products include personal computers, telephones, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions, calculators, GPS, automotive electronics, video game consoles, electronic musical instruments, digital cameras and players and recorders using video media such as DVDs, VCRs or camcorders. Increasingly these products have become based on digital technologies, and have largely merged with the computer industry in what is increasingly referred to as the consumerization of information technology.

The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) estimated the value of 2015 consumer electronics sales at US$220 billion.

History

For its first fifty years the phonograph did not use electronics. However, in the 1920s radio broadcasting became the basis of mass production of radio receivers. The vacuum tubes that had made them practical were used to improve record players as well. Television was soon invented but remained insignificant in the consumer market until the 1950s.