A new survey predicts there will be a big upheaval in home electronics in 2011.

The Accenture study shows consumer purchase rates for personal computers and mobile phones (excluding smart phones) will decline by 39 percent and 56 percent this year compared with last year, respectively.

By contrast, buying rates of 3D TVs are expected to rise 500 percent, tablet computers 160 percent, ebook readers 133 percent and smart phones 26 percent.

As consumer electronics companies consider ways to increase demand for 3D TVs, price emerged as the biggest lever for driving greater interest in 3D. According to the survey, 57 percent of respondents would be more inclined to buy a 3D TV if the price were within their budget. Finding this price point was more significant among respondents under 24 years old (64 percent) than respondents who were older (50 percent). Other factors respondents said would make them more inclined to buy a 3D TV included having greater availability of 3D content and not having to wear 3D glasses.

One amazing statistic from the study came from Chinese consumers. While only 25 percent of U.S. consumers plan to buy 3D TVs, a whopping 69 percent of Chinese consumers plan to.

PC Role on the Decline

The survey speculates PCs will no longer play a “relevant” role in the home. Only 17 percent of survey respondents plan to buy a desktop or laptop computer in 2011, a 39 percent drop from 2010. Tracking with this trend, the survey revealed 75 percent of U.S. survey respondents emailed each week from their PCs in 2010, down from 80 percent the year before.

The research also showed respondents are using multiple devices such as tablet PCs for activities that used to be done on traditional PCs. For example, on at least a weekly basis, 40 percent of the respondents email from a tablet PC. In addition to checking email, respondents are using tablet PCs for browsing the web, watching videos and reading books, newspapers and magazines.

“The research findings raise the question as to whether, in the long run, desktop and laptop PCs in the home will be increasingly replaced by a group of newer technology alternatives such as tablet computers, netbooks, smart phones and e-book readers,” says Kumu Puri, senior executive with Accenture’s Electronics and High-Tech Practice. “If strength is measured by unit sales, the computer will remain the strong consumer technology giant for many years. Our research found that 93 percent of survey respondents own a computer-a higher proportion than any of the 19 technologies included in the survey. But if measured by growth rate, the PC market-at least for consumers-has reached a level of saturation and will continue to see diminished growth rates. There’s increasing potential for an end in sight for the relevance of the personal computer in the home as we know it today.”

The research also found that ownership of basic mobile phones dropped from 79 percent in 2009 to 65 percent in 2010. In the same period, ownership of smart phones quadrupled from 8 percent to 32 percent. In the survey, mobile phones were described as having basic voice capability but not the enhanced features available on smartphones, such as surfing the Internet.