Life as we know it has changed once we were introduced to high-tech electronics such as the iPad, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and the Smartphone. These devices now allow everything and anything to be accessible in the palm of our hand. When was the last time you bought a CD, a VHS, or even a tape? This is because you can now download everything you could possibly need, from movies to music, books even, and everything in between. We no longer have the need to sit in front of our TV and watch a VHS; we can download it onto our I-Pad on the go, or use Netflix on our new smart TV’s.

However, what happens to those hard copies of everything that we used to buy? They fall to the wayside, and as you can see in the graph below, the imports of these records, tapes, and disks have fallen drastically in the past few years. Total imports of records, tapes and disks, based on the End Use Code 41220 found in TradeView™, in 2010 were 22% lower than that in 2007. There has been some fluctuation and in 2011, in so far there has been an overall monthly increase in imports from those seen in 2010, however, the trend of imports over time has gone down. The highest value of imports seen was in October of 2007 with $37.5 million while in October of 2010 there was only $27.7 million.

These new high-tech products are being produced so rapidly and come out with even more functionality than the previous device that even the older high-tech devices seem almost vintage. It makes one wonder; will we have the need for tapes, records and disks in the future, or will the high-tech electronics be all we need?