Tariffs & Trade Barriers: How have recent geopolitical tensions and shifting trade policies impacted your members? What steps have your members taken to mitigate the effects of these changes? 

Tariffs and trade policies, largely US-based, but also reciprocal, have significantly impacted pro AV. The net effect is price rises across many product categories, especially hardware categories like displays, cameras, lighting, and computing components. In addition, many buyers have delayed projects due to their inability to have set prices, as the tariff and trade policies change constantly.

Overall, however, the industry ecosystem has chosen a cost-sharing approach to mitigate the impact. Buyers, integrators, and manufacturers have all agreed to absorb a portion of the cost. Many firms have also stockpiled equipment ahead of tariff implementation, though this inventory is quickly shrinking, potentially setting up a more difficult 2026 environment.

AVIXA’s Market Opportunity Analysis Report in Q3 2025 showed that 39% of buyers have taken on the burden of increased project costs. Another 23% are mitigating the cost by using lower priced materials or scaling back on project size. A third reported project delays, while 15% have cancelled projects altogether.

In addition, the tariffs on hardware are acting as a catalyst, accelerating the industry's migration towards software, cloud services, and SaaS models, which bypass these import duties. On a larger scale, the US tariff landscape is forcing a major strategic pivot, establishing Mexico as the key tariff-free manufacturing hub for the North American market. Companies are rapidly scaling Mexican production, reversing recent shifts to countries like Vietnam. This benefits manufacturers with existing Mexican operations but poses significant challenges for those reliant on China or Vietnam.

European and Latin American countries and firms with large export businesses to the US are also challenged by higher costs from US tariffs. Firms that manufacture goods in the US (the US isn’t a manufacturing hub for pro AV, but it does source a significant portion of product development) have had to pay retaliatory tariffs.

To avoid some of these impacts, some suppliers will redirect goods to countries other than the US. For example, tariffs on displays shipping from China to the US have pushed Chinese supplies toward Europe. That has added to the existing glut of supply there and pushed down prices. This is likely to have a more short-term effect than a long-term one as companies will need to sell at long-term profitable prices even if they dump excess supply in the short term.

To underscore the effects: although new tariffs and trade policies haven't halted pro AV commerce, they have created enough chaos with pricing, logistics and unpredictability that businesses across the ecosystem and regions are focused on managing these effects, diverting attention from their projects and products.

Supply Chain Resilience: What lessons have you learned about supply chain resilience over the past few years, and how have companies adapted to ongoing disruptions or delays? Did the pandemic lead to any permanent changes in supply chain operations?

Supply issues came in a three-wave crescendo, starting first in spring 2020 with limited availability of equipment like USB cameras and ring lights. The next wave was in summer 2021, when the first recovery demand spikes created issues in a variety of categories (led by displays). The third and most severe wave crested in 2022, when peaking recovery growth caused supply issues to become the top business challenge for most pro AV businesses.

Today, supply issues are largely in the rearview mirror. Not only can businesses get what they need in predictable, short timelines, but they’ve also largely dug out from the lengthy backlogs.

AVIXA’s 2025 Channel Survey highlights this point. In 2024, supply chain issues (delivery times, product availability etc.) were seen as a top challenge by 40% of the respondents. In 2025, that number was 29%. Regarding the question of keeping inventory to avoid supply chain issues, in 2024, 30% of integrator companies said they were doing so, while in 2025, that number was 13%. (The survey was conducted before significant tariff impacts, and the associated stockpiling was implemented.)

Speaking of tariff impact, OEM brands that are heavily reliant on manufacturing in China or Vietnam, particularly those without established facilities or strong partnerships in Mexico, face significant competitive disadvantages and challenges. Down the value chain, resellers or private-label brands relying solely on these OEMs are deemed high risk. Conversely, manufacturers with existing Mexican operations are well positioned to benefit.

Looking at how the pandemic impacted the channel, 85% of the integrators surveyed in the 2025 AVIXA Channel Survey did make changes, and about 90% of those firms plan to keep them. The profile for what they keep is quite like what they’re doing in general, include maintaining more numerous sources and relationships, ordering earlier, and ordering from local suppliers – with perhaps a bit more skew toward the top two responses.

To underscore the key point, the surge of companies moving to secure their own supply adds robustness to the entire channel. This makes future supply problems less likely, reducing the incentive for an individual company to invest in its own robustness.

That’s incentive; what about costs? Inventory management costs are largely an individual company question. What really matters is how much it costs your company, not how much it’s costing others. Here, we see a clear skew toward higher inventory management costs (setting aside equipment price increases).

We see all this supporting the decision to zig while the market zags: be lean while the rest of the market becomes less lean. Yes, supply problems remain a risk, but the market’s change approach creates more robustness and therefore minimises likely impact.

New Markets: Do you see trends where organisations are exploring new markets due to challenged trading conditions?

Firms are exploring new markets. However, trade conditions are only one factor among many. The pro AV industry is beginning a period of normalisation, characterised by a slower pace of growth. AVIXA’s Industry Outlook and Trends Analysis forecast, refreshed in 2025, showed a CAGR of 3.9% for 2025 to 2030, revised down from 5.35% the year prior. The growth downshift is requiring firms to seek out new markets. From a solution standpoint, one significant market shift is the ability of pro AV firms to provide broadcast solutions to corporate and AV solutions to media companies. Geographically, the larger economies are showing slower growth, mainly in the US, China, and western Europe. This shift is causing firms to grow their presence in India, increase access in Latin America, the Middle East, and south-east Asia. These trends are unrelated to trade issues, although tariffs and other factors are influenced by them.

Stay informed!

ISE 2026 takes place in Barcelona on 3-6 February 2026. In our new Megatrends stream we will present sessions on TradeScape – the trading environment for the pro AV supply chain. For more updates on TradeScape and other industry megatrends, and to discover more about ISE 2026 as details are released, sign up for updates.

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