By: Woodrow Bellamy III
The Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) released its first ever avionics market report on Tuesday, showing total avionics sales of nearly $6.3 billion in 2012 for the general aviation industry.
AEA said the $6.3 billion figure represents sales data from 19 avionics manufacturers, and includes all aircraft electronic sales, including cockpit upgrades, cabin and software upgrades, components and accessories, hardware, batteries and chargeable product upgrades.
“Never before has there been a true capture of the dollar size of the general aviation electronics market,” said Paula Derks, AEA president.
The organization plans on expanding the report to a quarterly schedule, and to begin dividing the sales data into categories that include international sales, fixed-wing versus rotorcraft, aircraft categories and subscriptions sales. Currently, the report features only the total combined sales figure for the reporting companies.
The report was compiled by an ad hoc committee formed by AEA featuring representatives from avionics manufacturers throughout the United States. The 19 companies contributing to the report include Accord Technology, Aerosonic Corp., Anodyne, Aspen Avionics, Bendix/King, Cobham, Cool City Avionics, FreeFlight Systems, Garmin, Honeywell, International Communications Group (ICG), Jupiter Avionics, Latitude Technologies, Mid-Continent Instruments and Avionics, Rockwell Collins, Sandia Aerospace, Shadin, Trig Avionics and Universal Avionics Systems.
“Not only will this report be useful to our membership in strategic planning and examining market share, but it will be valuable information to promote our industry to the aviation community, investors, and most importantly, when informing our elected officials of the value of the industry to the global economy,” said Derks.