Speaking at the 2008 SmartHouse "Best Of The Best Awards" Carl Rose the Managing Director of Sony Australia told a large audience of industry executives that that one key issue will dominate the consumer electronics industry in the first quarter of 2009 price rises and the "dollar, dollar and the dollar".

Overnight the dollar has dropped  following the release of a US manufacturing activity report which is the worst in 26 years added to evidence the US was already in recession. A smaller than expected interest rate cut from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) today is tipped to give the domestic currency a short-lived boost, but weaker than forecast domestic retail sales data could spark fears about the local economy.

Already CE and IT distributors are feeling the effect of the falling dollar with some analysts now predicting a $0.60 dollar by Xmas which could result in further price hikes especially from Japanese manufacturers like Sony, Sharp, Pioneer, Mitsubishi and Fujitsu who are also having to battle the value of the Yen to the US dollar.

At 7am AEDT, the dollar was trading at $US0.6453/57, down marginally from Monday's close of $US0.6465/70.  During the offshore session, the local unit traded between a midnight low of $US0.6384 and a late high of $US0.6482.

Risk appetite for high-yielding currencies came under pressure after the Institute for Supply Management's US manufacturing report for last month posted its weakest reading since May 1982.   Manufacturing sector activity fell to 36.2 points in November, down from 38.9 in October, with a reading below 50 indicating a contraction.

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