'Tis the Season for LCD TVs

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One camera getting a lot of attention is Nikon's $1,200 D90, which is the subject of a heavy advertising campaign featuring the actor Ashton Kutcher. "That campaign is working well for Nikon," Lee says. Nikon is in close second place in the DSLR market behind Canon (CAJ), he says, with Sony in third. Lee says the market for DSLR cameras will grow 16%, to about 2.7 million units. That's about four times the growth rate for the much larger market for mainstream point-and-shoot digital cameras. Lee reckons consumers will buy 36 million of those year, up about 4% from last year.

What's in store for Apple (AAPL), the holiday season powerhouse over the last several years? Sales of iPods are expected to decline this year from last year. Market research firm NPD's latest sales figures suggest Apple will sell 18.5 million to 19 million iPods during the quarter ending in December. That would represent a drop of more than 3 million units. A lot of those lost sales will be made up by sales of Apple's popular iPhone device, which does everything an iPod does while also making phone calls. Analyst Bill Fearnley of FTN Midwest said in a research note Nov. 24 that he expects Apple to sell 6.3 million iPhones in the current quarter, which would represent a quarter-on-quarter drop of more than half a million units.

Handset Market Declining

The iPhone isn't the only smartphone selling well this season. Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm launched at Verizon Wireless on Nov. 21, causing lines out the doors of many stores. It quickly sold out, says RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky. "Verizon's online store and internal systems appeared to have crashed under significant demand," Abramsky says. "We estimate 100,000 to 120,000 units were sold on the first weekend, with up to 200,000 to 250,000 additional orders made online or in store, to be subsequently fulfilled."

What's declining? Forecasts for wireless phones are declining. Finland's Nokia (NOK) recently took down its estimate of the size of the worldwide handset market from 1.26 billion handsets to 1.24 billion. Worse, the market for handsets is expected to decline in 2009 by as much as 5%, reckons Barclays Capital analyst Jeff Kvaal.

Clearly the holiday season will be better for some than for others.

Hesseldahl is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.