By NYU Staff

What’s on your wish list this holiday season? If you’re like most people, it’s a shiny new gadget.

Four out of five adults plan on buying a consumer electronic product,  making it the highest amount in the 16 years of the Consumer Electronics Holiday Purchase Patterns Study.  Consumers plan to spend an average of $222 on consumer electronics, an eight percent increase over last year.  And in that mix will be e-readers.

The Kindle is Amazon’s top item, and other companies are benefiting from the burgeoning market. But some, like Sony’s new Daily Edition, might not be ready to capture the demand.

“Pent up demand for technology products is evident in consumers’ gift wish lists and holiday CE purchase plans,” said Steve Koenig, CEA’s director of industry analysis. “Some twenty percent of consumers say they plan to spend more on gifts compared to last year, with electronics leading the way.”

But on Wednesday, Sony said that its Daily Edition e-reader may not be available in time for Christmas. The Daily Edition e-reader will ship between December 18 and January 8, but as Sony acknowledges on its Sonystyle.com site, “the actual delivery date cannot be guaranteed.” This could result in a lot of disappointed kids – and adults.

The Daily Edition e-reader has a seven-inch touch-screen display and is smaller and cheaper, at just under $400, than Amazon’s large-screen Kindle DX. It’s the top-shelf model of three new e-readers Sony unveiled this fall, the other two of which, Sony Reader Touch Edition, and Sony Reader Pocket Edition, are already available for $300 and $200.

“Some of the hottest gifts this holiday will be CE products new to the market,” said Koenig. “Retailers who dedicate shelf space to new technologies, like eReaders, will likely be rewarded with stronger foot traffic.”

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