New Poll: Brits Love Gadgets, Fags And Booze

Brits love gadgets. This may sound like an obvious statement, but a recent study from market-research firm Euromonitor concludes that in 2007 we were the world’s second biggest gadget buyers after the US. When you consider that we’re often way down the list when it comes to the latest technology, frequently having to wait until Japan, America and the rest of Europe have had their fill, it goes to show that there’s a genuine passion for technology on our shores. £81 billion worth of hard-earned was spent on the latest consumer gadgets in the US and though we’re still some way behind that at just £24bn, it still eclipses the rest of Europe by some margin, with third placed Germany at £15bn and France and Russia just a little bit less than that. Despite Japan being notoriously nuts about the latest bag of chips it only spent just over £10bn on electronics. Of course the relative costs of such gizmos in particular countries obviously skews the figures somewhat, as illustrated by the fact that we came top of the ‘fags and booze’ poll by spending a whopping £34bn last year. – Paul Lester [RegHardware] UK gadget technology