Surging sales of flat-panel TVs will help U.S. consumer electronics market grow to $155B in 2007 Surging sales of flat-panel TVs will help the U.S. consumer electronics industry grow by 7 percent this year over 2006, according to a survey published Saturday by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).The survey, which covers factory-to-dealer sales, estimates the U.S. market will be worth $155 billion this year. Last year it was worth $145 billion. The figures count the wholesale value of the products and don’t include the markup added by dealers.Behind the strong performance was surging sales of digital consumer electronics such as flat-panel televisions. Those same products will propel the industry in 2007, the CEA said. The TV industry alone is predicted to be worth $26 billion as shipments of LCD (liquid crystal display) and PDP (plasma display panel) sets reach 19 million units in 2007 thanks to lower prices, the CEA said.The next-generation game console market, which has been ignited in the last couple of months by the launch of Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii consoles, will be worth $16 billion this year. That’s a 23 percent jump over 2006, according to the CEA’s prediction.The home audio market will be worth about $6 billion in 2007, the CEA said, thanks in a big way to the portable audio market, which includes Apple Computer’s smash-hit iPod player and Microsoft’s recently launched Zune player. Sales of portable audio players will account for 90 percent of all audio sales this year and around 41 million players will be shipped, the survey said. About 34 million players shipped in 2006, the CEA said. Shipments of portable navigation and GPS (global positioning system) devices will total 3 million this year, a 50 percent jump over 2006, according to the CEA’s forecast. The association also said that digital imaging shipments, which covers still and video cameras, will surpass 32 million units to be worth a record $8 billion. Technology Industry