U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content jumped 9.5% in Q3 from a year earlier to $7.96 billion, driven by the 16.9% rise in subscription VOD to $6.38 billion, reported the Digital Entertainment Group Monday. Packaged media sell-through declined 10.9% in the quarter to $430.49 million, but DEG accentuated the positive, saying the category “showed some resiliency” in Q3, decreasing by roughly half the rate of decline in recent quarters. U.S. home entertainment spending in the first nine months of 2021 increased 6.3% to $23.58 billion, coming amid the nearly 62.5% drop in consumer box office to $1.56 billion. SVOD spending through nine months increased 19.5% to $18.56 billion, said DEG. Packaged media sell-through was down 21.6% to $1.38 billion.

Q3 Chromebook and tablet shipments declined for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the result of supply constraints and loosened COVID-19 restrictions that crimped demand, reported IDC Monday. Chromebook shipments declined 29.8% year over year to 6.5 million units globally, while tablets recorded a 9.4% decline to 42.3 million, it said. “Easing restrictions across many geographies led to increased spending in other categories, which weakened Chromebook and tablet demand,” said IDC. “The decline also stems from the comparison to a strong third quarter in 2020 when consumer device shipments peaked.” The combination of lower demand and limited supply “is likely to create opportunity for PC makers as shared components, production capacity, and freight availability could be shifted to other categories such as Windows notebooks or perhaps gaming PCs,” said IDC. Lenovo, Acer, Dell, HP and Samsung were the top five global share leaders in Chromebooks, while Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo and Huawei were the top tablet brands, it said.

Americans’ average planned gift spend for the 2021 holiday season -- $648 -- is less than the $673 they spent last year but “historically high,” reported the Conference Board Wednesday. For the first time in a decade, consumers’ online shopping intentions are down year on year; 42% of consumers plan to make at least half of their gift purchases online vs. 52% in 2020. The top three gifts shoppers plan to spend more on this year are gift cards (10%), apparel and footwear (8%) and toys and games (2%). They plan to spend less on sporting goods and tools and hardware (-15%) and jewelry and accessories (-12%). Consumers are anticipating increased social activity “that widens their gift-giving and entertaining circles." With COVID-19 infections easing, and vaccination rates continuing to climb, consumers are more willing to shop in person, said the survey, but spending plans could be “thwarted by severe supply-chain challenges and transportation issues.” If snags persist, Americans “may face bare shelves that send more shoppers back online, and could also mean delays in receiving products purchased in time for the holidays,” it said. Thirty percent of consumers plan to travel this holiday season, with 48% planning to drive, 42% to fly.

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets increased sharply in October from September, reported the Conference Board Tuesday. The board hired data analytics company Toluna to canvass 3,000 U.S. homes online through Oct. 20, finding 11.7% plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, compared with 10.9% in September, 10.4% in August and 11% in October 2020. Consumer confidence improved in October, after three straight months of declines, sparked by worries over COVID-19's delta variant, said the board: “While short-term inflation concerns rose to a 13-year high, the impact on confidence was muted.”

The top 10 films showing at North American theaters last weekend had sales of $92.8 million, 1.5% above the same weekend in 2019, led by Dune at $40.1 million, Colliers analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Monday. He noted a “clear sign of shift to premium viewing experiences,” with Dolby, Imax and house brands generating half of the weekend’s domestic box office; Imax pulled in $9 million. Imax crowed that it set a new global October record at $100 million, surpassing the previous record of $84 million in 2013, with one weekend left in the month. Wedbush's Michael Pachter scaled back estimates for Imax Q3 revenue, in a Monday investor note, slicing $10 million off his previous estimate to $55 million and the full-year estimate to $226 million from $253 million. Gross box office on Imax screens ended at $142 million vs. Wedbush’ $158 million projection in Q3, due to “softer domestic results” after the delta variant “dampened the summer box office return.” China refused to play Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in the quarter, Pachter noted, affecting results, but late in Q3, China’s “nationalist title Battle at Lake Changjin made up the difference." The COVID-19 delta variant also “pushed exhibitors to delay installations in 2021,” Pachter said. The analyst expects Imax to return to its normal installation run-rate next year, driven by upgrade and growth projects with AMC in Europe and the Middle East, with Wanda and other exhibitors in China, and with exhibitors in Japan and Korea.

Consumers want better cross-channel shopping, said Leah Logan, Inmar Intelligence vice president-media products, on a Thursday Adweek webinar. Three-fourths of survey respondents said retailers should allow seamless access to offers, and 70% wanted offers or promotions integrated in a one-click add-to-cart option. More than half were open to being prompted about relevant offers while shopping and to being steered to relevant areas in the store based on interests or season, Logan said. Nine in 10 consumers are more likely to shop brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations; 71% expect companies to communicate with them in real time “and solve their issues quickly.” A screen grab showed the example of a beauty company sending an instant message to a customer asking if she would like to get a free sample of hand soap and then prompting her to load the sample to her loyalty card. Features shoppers want within a social media shopping experience are add-to-cart (64%), shopable livestreams (47%), "pre-scripted" buying recommendations (44%) and influencer shopping integrations (37%). Among the latest shopping technologies, 54% of shoppers said they're using buy online, pick up in store, 41% use checkout-free technology, 27% use virtual reality/augmented reality, half use curbside pickup and half use ads or offers from geo-targeted marketing when they arrive in store, she said. Use of VR and AR could be lagging "because we haven’t quite figured out how to add enough value there” or that “consumers just aren’t ready yet," Logan said. Currently, the most important shopping channel to consumers is social commerce, followed by traditional retail, mobile commerce and e-commerce, she said. Some 65% of consumers are willing to share personal information in exchange for more personalized shopping experiences, offers and other benefits, Logan said.

Global information technology spending will approach $4.5 trillion in 2022, increasing 5.5% from 2021, reported Gartner Wednesday. This assumes 2.3% growth in device spending to nearly $821 billion, it said. Global spending growth on devices is expected to spike 15.1% higher this year as remote work, telehealth and remote learning take hold, but Gartner expects 2022 will still show an uptick in enterprises that upgrade devices or invest in multiple devices “to thrive in a hybrid work setting.”

The projection by NPD Vice President Stephen Baker that Q4 consumer tech industry revenue will grow while unit sales decline tops his annual “Baker’s Dozen” list of holiday expectations. The 2% increase NPD is forecasting for Q4 revenue is below the “yearly market trend,” but it's “noteworthy revenue growth given the 16% CE sales growth recorded in Q4 2020 vs. Q4 2019,” said Baker Thursday. Unit sales are expected to fall 5%, he said. “Eat turkey and shop from the couch,” advised Baker, saying with fewer stores opening on Thanksgiving Day than in recent years, “online shopping will once again be center stage.” Another Baker tip: “Go big or go home.” After nearly two years of “unprecedented volumes” in consumer tech sales, he said, “holiday 2021 is likely the last period for a while that the confluence of demand, lifestyle needs, installed base growth, and product refreshes all come together to produce the robust demand we have been experiencing.” He predicts “it will be a couple of years before these opportunities come back again.”

There’s a “disconnect” between consumers and retailers over holiday shopping expectations heading into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, reported Accenture Tuesday. It canvassed 1,500 consumers and ran a parallel survey of 120 retail executives, both in August, finding only 22% of consumers planning to do much of their holiday shopping on those two days, compared with 42% of the retail executives who expect busy shopping activity. Consumers are planning to spend $598 on average this holiday season, compared with $539 last year, Accenture found. Older millennials (32-39 years old) anticipate spending $705 on average, the highest among any age group, it said. “Comfort with in-store shopping is returning,” despite the ongoing pandemic. Fifty-four percent of consumers overall, and 70% of Generation Zers, plan to do most of their holiday shopping in-store this season, the survey found. One surprising finding, according to Accenture -- 54% of baby boomers anticipate doing most of their shopping online.

Global Q3 PC shipments inched up 1% year on year to 84.1 million units, reflecting the reopening of schools after a year of COVID-19 shutdowns and “no longer an immediate need for PCs and Chromebooks to support at-home education,” said Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa Monday. Business PC demand remained strong, led by economic recovery in key regions and the return to offices for some workers, said the analyst. Chromebooks, which joined Gartner’s traditional PC reporting for the first time in the quarter, fell 17% year on year in Q3 on a drop in demand in the education market. It was the first double-digit decline for the segment since Chromebooks were introduced in 2011. Market leader Lenovo, with 23.5% share, had 1.8% growth to 19.9 million shipments, followed by HP (22.5% share), which had a 5.8% shipment drop to 17.6 million on weak Chromebook sales and supply chain constraints: “A major backlog of unfilled orders led HP to potentially miss out on opportunities that its competitors capitalized upon,” said Kitagawa. Dell shipments spiked 26.5% to 15.2 million due to relatively low consumer market exposure, ending the quarter with 14.5% share, said the analyst. Apple saw 7.4% growth “despite a weak consumer market,” she said, citing a positive reception for the company’s M1 chip. Apple's 6.9% Q3 share was held back by some customers putting laptop purchases on hold in advance of a fall product refresh, expected Monday during Apple’s Unleashed event.