During the year of DSO, Norwegians bought 1,1 million home- and portable radios and 700.000 DAB+ adaptors for car use. In addition 159.000 cars with line-fit DAB+ radios were sold. In the period before DSO, yearly sales of radios were typically around 750.000 pieces including home and car products. By November 2017 85% of Norwegian households owned at least one DAB+ radio (Digital radio survey, Kantar Media).
Digitalradio Norway CEO, Ole J. Torvmark: “2017 became the record-selling year for DAB+ radios in Norway. We are grateful for this big effort made by Norwegian radio listeners to move into our new radio universe”.
By November 2017 49% of all Norwegian private cars had a DAB+ radio (Digital radio survey, Kantar Media).
“In-car radios have been a much greater challenge than home radios”, says Torvmark. “The majority of those who now own an in-car DAB+ radio, are among the keenest listeners, thus making up the majority of in-car listening. Generally, less devoted listeners have postponed their upgrade. Lately, prices of in-car products have fallen, and the chioce offered to consumers has never been greater. During 2018 we expect a significant further growth of in-car DAB+ take-up”.
Listener loyalty
In January 2018 the figures show there was almost the same number of radio listeners as the previous year. The number of weekly listeners was down by only 1.8 percentage points (Radio survey PPM, Kantar Media), to 81.4%. However, each listener has fewer opportunities for radio listening due to owning fewer radios that can receive the national radio stations.
“This is as expected. Some need more time to replace more than one single radio”, says Torvmark. “Typically, the kitchen radio has been upgraded, while the car- or bedroom radio is still analogue”.
“For this reason we think sales of radios will remain above the normal level for some time to come”.
