Set-top box shipments globally likely hit 253.1 million units for 2015, up slightly less than 2 percent from 2014, as the worldwide multichannel market hit 959 million subscribers, SNL Kagan said in a news release Thursday. The growth was due to increased demand in China and India, it said. Cable set-top unit shipments globally likely were close to 75 million for the year, about the same as 2014, and demand was likely flat as many cable TV markets approach saturation, SNL Kagan said. The IP set-top market also was probably flat as growing demand in Asia and Europe was offset by declines in North America, it said. Satellite set-top shipments are expected to be 47 percent of global set-top unit shipments, the largest segment of the market, it said. DVR-enabled set-top shipments declined for the year due to cost concerns and growing use of cloud-based DVR services, SNL Kagan said.

Worldwide PC shipments declined 10.6 percent to 71.9 million units in 2015's Q4, IDC said in a report. The decline was “in line” with IDC’s “already conservative expectations,” and 2015 was the first year since 2008 that global shipments fell below 300 million units, it said. “The PC market continued to face persistent challenges from longer-PC lifecycles and competition from mobile phones and tablets, despite the slowing growth in those markets.” Though “some very attractive new PCs have been launched, the market is taking some time to respond to new OS and hardware configurations,” it said Monday. “Nevertheless, many of these products have received positive reviews and there's potential for a faster commercial transition to Windows 10 in 2016 than we saw for prior versions of Windows."

U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content jumped 0.9 percent in 2015 from a year earlier to $18.1 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group said Wednesday in its year-end report. For Q4, the rise in spending was 1.3 percent to $5.3 billion, DEG said. Subscription streaming was the year’s big winner, rising nearly 25 percent to $5.1 billion, it said. Subscription rentals of physical media was the year’s biggest loser, declining nearly 16 percent to $667 million, it said. Sell-through spending on packaged goods fell 12 percent to $6.1 billion, it said. However, with 8 percent growth in Blu-ray sales, the industry, sell-through-wise, “saw its best year over year physical retail performance since early 2014,” DEG said. “The strength of the premium experience bodes well for the introduction of Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2016.”

Forty-seven percent of Americans said they felt "confused, discouraged or impatient" when deciding whether to share personal information with companies, Pew Research Center said Wednesday of findings in a new survey asking people about their feelings about the issue. Conducted earlier this year, the survey found that 50 percent were confident they understood how their personal data were being used by companies. But Pew found that "a sizable number of U.S. adults said they were confused over information provided in company privacy policies, discouraged by the amount of effort needed to understand the implications of sharing their data, and impatient because they wanted to learn more about the information-sharing process but felt they needed to make a decision right away." The survey also found few differences in such negative feelings between men and women and between people of different income levels. But Pew said people under age 50 said they felt slightly more impatient about providing personal data than did those 50 and older. The latest survey mirrors other polls saying Americans feel they have less control over how their information is shared and used, Pew said.

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets fell sharply in December from November, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Of 5,000 homes canvassed by Nielsen for the Conference Board through Dec. 15, 12.9 percent of consumers said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, down from 14.2 percent in November and 13.2 percent in December 2014, the Conference Board said. The Consumer Confidence Index, which fell “moderately” in November, improved in December, rising to 96.5 points from 92.6 in November, the Conference Board said in a Tuesday announcement. “As 2015 draws to a close, consumers’ assessment of the current state of the economy remains positive, particularly their assessment of the job market,” it said. “Looking ahead to 2016, consumers are expecting little change in both business conditions and the labor market. Expectations regarding their financial outlook are mixed, but the optimists continue to outweigh the pessimists.”

Technology didn’t share in the holiday selling season spending windfall at U.S. retailers, said Julia Monti, business leader-worldwide communications at MasterCard, in a Monday blog post. “Retailers rejoice!” Monti said, citing the results of MasterCard’s SpendingPulse survey of U.S. retail sales trends across cards, cash and checks. “U.S. retail sales saw solid gains this holiday season,” Monti said. The survey estimates that retail sales, excluding cars and gas, grew 7.9 percent between Nov. 27 -- the “traditional” Black Friday -- and Christmas Eve compared with the same 2014 period, she said. E-commerce and furniture were “the biggest winners” of the holiday, incurring double-digit growth from a year earlier, “while electronics and men’s apparel lagged well behind,” she said. For certain retailers, e-commerce sales “were a big gift,” growing roughly 20 percent from a year earlier, she said: “This is not a total surprise, as 70% of U.S. consumers report doing more research online than before,” she said. “Transitioning from research to a sale makes sense, if the proper customer experience and incentive -- free or fast shipping, for instance -- is in place.” MasterCard SpendingPulse policy bars the public disclosure of "specific category numbers," Monti emailed us Tuesday when we asked for more details on her statement that consumer technology sales lagged well behind other categories. "But I can tell you that electronics sales declined compared to the 2014 holidays." The MasterCard holiday sales estimates “echo what we’ve been reporting throughout the holiday season,” Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at the Consumer Technology Association, emailed us Tuesday. “Our pre-holiday forecasts pointed to the importance that the online channel would play this year,” DuBravac said. “The 2015 holiday season appears to have continued this channel shift, with online becoming a more prominent component of consumer purchases -- as we predicted. Consumer electronics was just one of many categories influenced by this shift.”

Consumer confidence in the overall economy and in technology spending both decreased this month, suggesting “possible weakness” to the finish of the holiday season, said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist, Consumer Technology Association Tuesday. Despite lower unemployment, “solid consumer spending” and lower energy prices, the December dip in consumer confidence toward the overall economy points to a “cautious consumer,” said DuBravac. CTA’s Index of Consumer Technology Expectations, which measures consumer expectations about technology spending, dropped for the month, said DuBravac, citing a possible consumer retrenchment after a “heavy holiday shopping period.” He expects tech spending to pick up as fundamentals improve next year.

More consumers opted to take advantage of big holiday deals on just one of the big retail days this year, rather than venturing out to stores on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday, NPD said in a Friday report. The proportion of those who shopped both Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday declined to 39 percent this year from 46 percent in 2014, it said. “Black Friday was clearly the dominant choice with 43 percent of shoppers hitting stores, with a slight boost from last year,” it said. Consumers choosing to only shop on Thanksgiving grew to 18 percent from 14 percent last year, “despite many stores deciding not to open their doors on the holiday,” it said. “The majority of shoppers who did venture out on Thanksgiving or Black Friday went to just one store and they were done,” it said. Thanksgiving Day at 6 p.m., and Black Friday at noon were the peak spending hours this year, it said. Best Buy “won the early shopper, hitting their peak” at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, it said. Overall, technology “captured the largest share of spend on Thanksgiving Day, but the average spend declined compared to 2014,” it said.

TV Everywhere is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, as 53 percent of consumers in pay-TV homes use a TVE service to watch content on a computer, mobile device or TV, up from 43 percent three years ago, GfK said in a news release Wednesday. GfK said its TV Everywhere 2015 report indicated 42 percent of pay-TV households received TVE offerings from signal providers, while 46 percent used TV network services. Mobile devices are the big driver of increased TVE use, GfK said, with monthly use of mobile apps and mobile sites doubling between 2012 and 2015. TVE viewership is particularly strong in younger demographics -- from two to four times higher among Generation Xers and millennials than baby boomers, GfK said.

Eight in 10 digital device users said they would stop engaging with content that's too long or hard to view across devices, said an Adobe report Monday. Consumers are increasingly “multiscreening, impatient and demanding to be entertained,” said Adobe. Nearly three-fourths of consumers are open to content recommendations from brands based on experience, and 75 percent said they would exchange at least one piece of data about themselves to prompt better content suggestions, said the report. To be successful, brands need to earn consumers’ trust, use great design and apply smart, predictive connections that add value to the experience, said Brad Rencher, general manager-digital marketing, Adobe. Respondents said they used an average of five different devices and 83 percent said they used multiple devices simultaneously. Globally, consumers use an average of 2.23 devices at the same time, while U.S. consumers reported the highest simultaneous usage at an average 2.42 devices. On their feelings about multiscreening, 81 percent of consumers felt entertained, 80 percent felt connected, 76 percent felt productive while 47 percent said they were distracted when multiscreening. Consumers are skeptical of most content they view online, said Adobe. Half question whether negative comments or reviews have been removed from a product listing, 49 percent question whether an author was given an incentive to write a positive review and 48 percent wonder whether a news article was biased, said Adobe. Most consumers consider a product endorsement by an ordinary person more credible than one by a celebrity, and 63 percent are most likely to trust content from a close friend or relative, it said. The report, commissioned by Adobe and produced by Edelman Berland, is the second installment of a two-part online survey of 12,169 consumers ages 18-plus from six countries: Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., Sept. 12-29. The margin of error is +/- 0.89 percent.