Recession Proof Products: Spam and Cellphones

And I mean canned Spam, not the email kind (H/T Instapundit): Hormel Turns Out More Spam


And, thankfully, the industry I am in is largely - but not totally - recession proof:

Consumers won't give up their cell phones. They may lose their jobs and even their homes, but consumers seem unwilling to disconnect their cell phones.

"I would sleep in my car before I would give up my mobile phone," says Yankee Group Analyst Carl Howe. "Consumers buy services like broadband and mobile phones, and even if they lose their jobs they need these services more than ever."

The cellphone companies are suffering, but more because consumers are trading down. While volume is down, it is not significant (and with past cellphone growth any slowdown seems huge). In the mean time cellphone providers are bleeding off inventory. The combination of trade-down and inventory bleed is currently hurting the supply chain pretty badly. But after the bleed-off, the demand for the basic cellphone building blocks will level off and I think there will be stability within the segment by the back half of 2009.

As for the guys making TV receivers and other gadgets for high-end handsets, well, those guys will be hurting for the duration.