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.

The rise of Uber and other ride-sharing options for consumers doesn’t necessarily bode poorly for future vehicle purchase intentions of current vehicle owners, Strategy Analytics said in a Monday report. Ride-sharing usage actually increases the likelihood that current vehicle owners will buy another vehicle in the next five years, the report said. It said frequent ride-sharing users who also own their own vehicle “had greater transportation needs” than those who don’t: “Ridesharing fills a niche that is convenient but will not supplant their personal vehicle.” On the other hand, millennials with no children who use ride-sharing services at least once a week are less likely to buy another vehicle in the next five years than parents as a whole, the report said. “The question of how emerging transportation options like ridesharing and car-sharing will impact vehicle sales is a very complex one to answer. Issues of cost, convenience, usability, privacy, type of journey, and length of journey all impact transportation choices,” it said. “Frequent ridesharing users do not seem likely to delay their next vehicle purchase, but it is still possible that they might choose a less expensive or lower class vehicle. Alternatively, they may choose to downsize their fleet from three vehicles to two.”

PC shipments in the U.S. are expected to grow 2.3 percent annually in the next five years, Daniel Research Group said in a Tuesday report. Though shipments of desktop PCs and laptops are expected to decline 0.8 percent this year, “we anticipate healthy growth” in 2018, when shipments increase 4.3 percent, the company said. It forecasts an economic slowdown in 2019 and 2020 that will keep growth rates under 2 percent in each of those years, before shipments rebound with 5 percent growth in 2021, fueled by consumer demand for replacement models.

U.S. consumers are expected to spend more than ever on gifts for Father’s Day this year, the National Retail Federation said in a Monday forecast. Father’s Day shoppers are expected to spend an average $134.75 for the holiday, up from last year’s $125.92, NRF said. With 77 percent of consumers surveyed celebrating, total spending is expected to reach $15.5 billion. That’s the highest number in the survey’s 15-year history, topping last year’s previous record of $14.3 billion, it said. The survey found 27 percent of dads would love to receive a “gift of experience” for Father’s Day -- and 25 percent of shoppers plan to grant that wish with gifts like tickets to a concert or a sporting event, it said.

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets fell slightly in May from April, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the Conference Board. Nielsen polled 5,000 homes for the board through May 18 and found 11.5 percent plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, down from 11.9 percent in April, 13 percent in March and 13.3 percent in May 2016, it said. Overall consumer confidence also declined slightly in May, after a “moderate” decline in April, it said: “Consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions held steady, suggesting little change in overall economic conditions. Looking ahead, consumers were somewhat less upbeat than in April, but overall remain optimistic that the economy will continue expanding into the summer months.”

The top U.S. pay-TV providers lost roughly 410,000 net video subscribers in Q1, compared with a 10,000 subscriber gain in the year-ago quarter, Leichtman Research Group reported Thursday. It's the first time the industry posted net subscriber losses in a Q1, said principal Bruce Leichtman, who said declines shouldn’t be interpreted as driven solely by increased cord-cutting. It's "also a function of a decrease in new connects, partially due to some providers less aggressively pursuing lower value customers than in the past,” he said. While most cable companies saw a drop in subscribers, Comcast had 41,000 net adds for an industry-leading 22.5 million subscribers, said the report. Together, the top six cable companies lost about 115,000 video subscribers in Q1 vs. a 50,000 subscriber gain in the year-ago quarter, said Leichtman. DirecTV had no net gains vs. a gain of 328,000 a year earlier, while Dish Network lost 318,000 net subscribers, according to Leichtman estimates for Dish, which doesn't break out subscribers for direct broadcast satellite and internet-delivered services. AT&T U-Verse lost 233,000, FiOS lost 13,000 and Frontier lost 80,000 net subscribers, said the researcher. Internet-delivered services SlingTV and DirecTV Now each added 175,000 subscribers in Q1, Leichtman estimated. At the end of the quarter, the U.S. had 48.6 million cable subscribers, 33.2 million satellite subscribers, 9.8 million phone company video subscribers and 1.7 million customers with internet-delivered video, Leichtman said.

Total U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content inched up by 1.9 percent in Q1 to $4.68 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group reported Thursday. Subscription streaming was the quarter’s big winner, with sales in that sector rising 26.3 percent to $1.79 billion, DEG said. Overall spending on digital delivery jumped 16.3 percent to $2.93 billion, it said. The industry sold more than 2.6 million 4K TVs in the first quarter, up 54 percent from Q1 a year earlier, bringing the total installed base to more than 18 million sets, it said. DEG estimates nearly 115 million U.S. homes own either an HD or a 4K TV, it said. DEG also estimates more than 92 million U.S. homes own a Blu-ray playback device, up 10 percent from Q1 a year earlier, it said. Of those, nearly 4 million are Ultra HD Blu-ray playback devices, DEG said. NPD estimates 139 Ultra HD Blu-ray titles were introduced through April 9, UHD Alliance President Hanno Basse announced at the NAB Show (see 1704240064). The available Ultra HD Blu-ray titles "collectively sold about 900,000 units in the quarter,” DEG said. But consumer spending on all physical formats declined 14.3 percent to $1.18 billion, DEG said: “Results for the physical business were affected by the fact that Easter -- traditionally a major gift giving holiday -- did not fall in the first quarter as it did in 2016.”

Growing interest in artificial intelligence systems will drive a $59.8 billion market globally by 2025, up from $1.4 billion last year, said a Tuesday Tractica report, a revision to a Q3 report updated to reflect a “greater-than-anticipated pace of change in the market." Applications cross the consumer, automotive, advertising, finance, healthcare and aerospace sectors, as companies look for ways to leverage advanced data analytics, vision, and language capabilities for improved business processes and new business models, said the research firm. Analyst Aditya Kaul called AI “the next big technological shift,” comparing it to the industrial revolution, the computer age and the "smartphone revolution."

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets plunged significantly in April from March, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the Conference Board. Nielsen polled 5,000 homes through April 13 and found 11.8 percent plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, down from 13 percent in March, 12.4 percent in February and 14.3 percent in April 2016, the Conference Board said. Overall consumer confidence also declined in April, after rising in February and March, it said: "Consumers assessed current business conditions and, to a lesser extent, the labor market less favorably than in March. Looking ahead, consumers were somewhat less optimistic about the short-term outlook for business conditions, employment and income prospects. Despite April’s decline, consumers remain confident that the economy will continue to expand in the months ahead."

The percentage of consumers who prefer to watch television shows on a TV plunged from 52 percent to 23 percent in 2016, said a global Accenture report Monday, tracking a four-year trend. Consumers in 26 countries indicated a preference for watching television shows on non-TV devices, with 42 percent saying they would rather view TV shows on a PC, up from 32 percent the prior year, and 13 percent said they prefer watching shows on a smartphone, up from 10 percent, said the study. In 2014, two-thirds of consumers preferred watching shows on a TV, it said. Just 19 percent of consumers prefer to watch sports on a TV, down from 38 percent in the 2015 survey, said the report. Driving the rapid shift in consumer preferences is the “growing convenience, availability and quality of more personalized and compelling content on laptop and desktop personal computers and smartphones,” said analyst Gavin Mann. The report showed a particularly steep decline in India, where consumers preferring to watch programs on TV sets fell from 47 percent to 10 percent. In the U.S., the number dropped from 59 percent to 25 percent, it said. The online survey was done between October and November with about 26,000 consumers ages 14 to 55 and over.