U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content rose 2.6 percent in 2017's first half to $9.17 billion, said a Digital Entertainment Group Thursday midyear report. Subscription streaming was the report’s big winner, as spending in that sector jumped 24 percent in first half to $3.62 billion, DEG said. Brick-and-mortar rentals moved closer to extinction, falling 20.2 percent to $207.11 million. Though sell-through of packaged goods fell 10.4 percent in the first half to $2.31 billion, the rate of decline in Q2 was only 5.8 percent, after the 14.3 percent decline in Q1. This was due to a 2 percent Q2 rise in spending on Blu-ray titles. Other findings: (1) More than 4.8 million Ultra HD TVs were sold in the first half, bringing the total number of sets sold to date above 20 million; (2) About a million Ultra HD Blu-ray playback devices were sold in the first half, bringing the number of players sold life to date to 4.3 million, including game console; (3) availability of Ultra HD Blu-ray content is “expanding rapidly,” with 166 titles on the market.

Tech will consume a bigger share of back-to-school spending, projected at $19.9 billion for this season, said a Thursday CEA report saying 63 percent of Americans have technology on their school shopping lists, up 4 percentage points from last year. Six of the top 10 tech back-to-school shopping list items are accessories, said Steve Koenig, senior director-market research, citing high attachment rates for computing products. Leading tech on school shopping lists are portable memory, calculators, headphones, laptop PCs, software or subscriptions, carrying or protective cases, portable power, wireless mice and keyboards, tablets and smartphones, said CTA. Some 88 percent of back-to-school shoppers plan to buy at a brick-and-mortar mass merchant store, 56 percent at a physical office supply store and 44 percent online, it said. The report was based on June survey findings from 1,007 U.S. adults ages 18 or older.

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets fell in July from June, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 homes for the Conference Board through July 14 and found 12.5 percent plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, down from 14 percent in June, up from 11.9 percent in May and unchanged from 12.5 percent in July 2016, it said. Overall consumer confidence increased in July after a “marginal decline” in June, it said: “Consumers’ assessment of current conditions remained at a 16-year high ... and their expectations for the short-term outlook improved somewhat after cooling last month. Overall, consumers foresee the current economic expansion continuing well into the second half of this year.”

Consumer technology sales are on track for 3.2 percent growth this year to $321 billion ($251 billion wholesale), said a Wednesday CTA report. CTA projects drones, OLED TV and virtual reality (VR) technology will each cross the $1 billion in revenues for the first time in 2017. Among emerging technologies, wearables -- including fitness trackers, other health and fitness devices, hearables, over-the-counter hearing devices and smartwatches -- are expected to see 9 percent revenue growth over 2016 to 48 million units, ringing up $5.6 billion, said CTA. Smart home products -- including thermostats, detectors, Wi-Fi cameras, smart locks and doorbells, systems and switches and dimmers -- are forecast to grow 48 percent over 2016 to $3.3 billion, said the trade group. Growth will continue in 4K TVs, on pace for a 59 percent jump over 2016 to 16.7 million units, generating $14.6 billion, CTA said. Sales of digital assistant devices, such as Amazon Echo, Google Home and the upcoming Apple HomePod, are expected to spike 53 percent to 11 million units, pulling in $1.3 billion in revenue, while mobile VR headsets are forecast to surge 79 percent vs. last year to 5.3 million units, generating $1.3 billion, said CTA. Sales of drones under 250 grams (about one-half pound) -- the FAA’s cutoff for mandatory drone registration -- are projected to grow 40 percent over last year, reaching 3.4 million units with $1.1 billion revenue, it said. In maturing categories, where the top five revenue categories account for 53 percent of total industry revenue, smartphones will advance 3 percent this year to 185 million shipments, totaling $55.6 billion in revenue, said CTA. Tablets, meanwhile, will decline again in 2017, dropping 5 percent to 59 million units, generating an 8 percent drop in revenues to $16 billion. After record unit shipments in 2016, LCD TV unit shipments will slip 1 percent in both units (40 million) and revenue ($18 billion). Laptop sales are projected to rise 2 percent, including commercial and consumer channels, reaching $28 billion in sales, but a 1 percent decline in dollars, CTA said. Automotive technology, joining the top five hardware categories in revenue for the first time this year, will produce $15 billion in revenue, a 12 percent increase over 2016, it said.

Worldwide Q2 PC shipments hit their lowest quarterly volume since 2007, said a Gartner report. The 61.1 million shipments overall in Q2 were a 4.3 percent falloff from the year-ago quarter, for the 11th consecutive quarter of declining shipments amid a five-year “slump,” Gartner said. Component shortages for DRAM, solid-state drives and LCD panels had a “pronounced negative impact” on PC demand in the quarter, said analyst Mikako Kitagawa. Vendors took different approaches to higher component costs, with some absorbing the costs without raising final product prices, while others passed on higher costs to end users, Kitagawa said. Price hikes have a bigger impact in the consumer market than the enterprise market, where prices are typically locked in based on a contract, the analyst said. “Many consumers are willing to postpone their purchases until the price pressure eases,” she said. In the U.S., Q2 PC shipments to consumers totaled 14 million units, down 5.7 percent from Q2 2016, on weak demand, said Gartner. The business PC market showed “some consistent growth,” but the education market felt pressure from strong Chromebook demand, Kitagawa said. The Chromebook market has been growing much faster than the overall PC market, said Gartner, which doesn’t include Chromebook shipments in PC figures. Worldwide Chromebook shipments grew 38 percent in 2016, while the overall PC market declined 6 percent, it said. Chromebooks are not a PC replacement “as of now,” said Kitagawa, but they could be in the future with improved connectivity and more offline capability. HP reclaimed the top position from Lenovo in the worldwide PC market in Q2, with 3.3 percent growth over Q2 2016 to 12.7 million units, for 20.8 percent market share, said Gartner, while Lenovo shipments fell 8.4 percent to 12.2 million for 19.9 percent share. Dell shipments, at 15.6 percent share, were up 1.4 percent in the quarter, and Apple shipments were roughly flat at 4.2 million, for 6.9 percent share. Asus and Acer shipments dropped 10.3 percent and 12.5 percent in the quarter, giving the companies 6.6 percent and 6.3 percent share, said Gartner.

Few people considering a switch in their pay-TV provider actually follow through, likely because comparing services is difficult, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Monday. Even assuming a consumer figures out what channels are must-have, determining which service provider carries them is daunting, he said, saying it's getting more challenging with entry of virtual MVPDs. The analyst said comparison shopping could get easier with Monday's launch of Suppose TV, which allows comparison of pricing, channels and options and services among pay-TV providers.

Q2 likely saw pay-TV subscriber losses of 1.28 million -- or 858,000 when streaming bundles are factored in -- Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker wrote investors. With Q1 already having a 748,000 loss -- or 328,000 including streaming subscribers -- she said Q2 is traditionally the weakest quarter of the year, and Hulu and YouTube have launched streaming bundles and there's increased incumbent MVPD competition with AT&T aggressively promoting DirecTV and DirecTV Now and no Verizon strike underway.

The majority of broadband-connected U.S. households now are watching online video on TV, Parks Associates said in a news release Tuesday. Parks said 88 percent of computer-based video watching comes from nonlinear sources, and 72 percent of cord-cutters and cord-nevers subscribe to an over-the-top video service that's their primary source of content. The researcher said 49 percent of broadband households in the U.S. subscribe to Netflix, making it the market leader, and well over 60 percent of broadband households subscribe to at least one OTT service; a third subscribe to two or more.

Smart TVs will reach near parity with streaming media players next year as platforms delivering apps to TVs, said a Wednesday NPD report. By 2020, smart TVs will drive 48 percent of installed internet-connected TV device growth, compared with 31 percent for streaming media players, with Blu-ray players and game consoles accounting for the balance, NPD said. Mass-market adoption of 4K TV also will play a role in the growth of connected TV as nearly all 4K TVs are internet-capable, said NPD analyst John Buffone. As the options for connecting TVs to the internet grow, consumers eventually will choose a preferred device, resulting in “diminished use for other devices,” said Buffone, who said streaming media player OEMs including Google, Roku and Amazon will continue to partner with TV makers to integrate their operating systems into displays.

Households are buying fewer traditional CE devices than in the past, said a Parks Associates report Tuesday, citing a drop in purchase rates from 87 percent in 2008 to 74 percent last year. Parks broke out as examples buying figures from Q1 when 12 percent of broadband households bought a game console, 5 percent bought a connected Blu-ray player and 3 percent bought a DVR, it said. "Today, consumers are satisfied with many of their existing products, provided they are working well," said President Tricia Parks. Consumers value their connected CE products, but there’s “no big purchase buzz except for personal assistants with voice,” Parks said, identifying the Amazon Echo for its “wow factor” that’s translating to consumer adoption. The smart speaker category as a whole, which also includes Google Home, has the highest Net Promoter Score of all surveyed CE devices, said Parks, and that’s bringing competitive devices to the market. A wider number of products with Wi-Fi and market saturation in flat screen TVs and smartphones is contributing to the decline in purchase rates for many CE categories, said the research firm, which also noted a lack of familiarity with newer technologies including virtual reality headsets and 4K TVs. Other findings: Broadband households own an average 8.1 connected CE products; nearly half of all broadband households have a smart TV; ownership of game consoles dropped to 49 percent in 2017 from 58 percent last year; and 70 percent of streaming media player owners report using their devices one to three times per week.