Holiday spending could reach record levels this year, said a Roku-Harris Poll study of holiday shopping plans, saying consumers expect to spend $937 on average on holiday purchases, up 5% from 2020. Nearly a third of consumers plan to buy big-ticket items over $500 this season, with 63% saying they plan to buy electronics. The August survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults showed 72% of holiday consumers were confident the economy will improve in the next 12 months. Millennials plan to spend the most on themselves ($157) compared with other age groups. Men plan to spend nearly twice as much on their significant other as women do this holiday season ($213 vs. $118); they plan to spend twice as much on “self-gifting” ($120) as women ($61). Consumers are changing how they approach gift-giving and how media consumption influences purchase decisions, said Dan Robbins, Roku vice president-ad marketing and partner solutions. Nearly half of holiday shoppers said they shopped for a product after seeing a TV streaming advertisement, he said, noting relevance of digital ads when one out of three holiday shoppers is “unreachable” on traditional pay TV.

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 impact and component shortages, global smart speaker and smart display shipments rose 34.8% in Q2 to 39.5 million, setting a new high mark for the category, reported Strategy Analytics Tuesday. Smart display sales increased 45% to 11.6 million; smart speakers without a display advanced 31%. Baidu leads the smart display market with 38% share vs. 26% for Amazon, while Amazon retained its No. 1 share, 26.7%, in the combined market on shipments of 10.6 million, said SA. Google had 6.9 million shipments for 17.4% share, up 34% year on year; Apple’s 3.8 million shipments marked a 178% bump for 9.5% share.

November-January holiday sales will grow 7%-9% this year to $1.28 trillion-$1.3 trillion, said a Tuesday Deloitte holiday forecast. It projects e-commerce sales to rise 11%-15% to $210 billion-$218 billion. Strong spending will be driven by higher vaccination rates and higher consumer comfort levels with being outside the home, said analyst Daniel Bachman. “A steady decline in the savings rate to pre-pandemic levels will support consumer spending and keep retail sales elevated this season," he said. Last year's holiday sales grew by 5.8%. The COVID-19 delta variant and “ongoing uncertainty spurred by the pandemic may drive more spending on goods,” he said.

Nearly half of American workers would switch to a new job if it offered “skills training opportunities,” an Amazon-commissioned Gallup study found. Gallup canvassed 15,000 U.S. adults online June 8-17, finding training or education that teaches new skills or advances or upgrades existing skills is becoming a “sought-after employee benefit and powerful attraction tool for employers amid the current labor shortage,” reported the companies Thursday. Nearly a third of respondents said they were able to move into new, higher-paying jobs after gaining new skills, and 39% said they advanced in their current job, the study found. Nearly seven in 10 said the opportunity to participate in an "upskilling" program was an "extremely" or "very" important factor in deciding to take a new job, and 61% cited it as important when weighing the decision to remain at their current job.

A quarter of U.S. consumers are cord cutters, and they pay less than half the rates traditional pay-TV customers do, at $49 vs. $121, blogged Roku Thursday, citing a National Research Group survey. Cord cutters spend 22 hours per week streaming, three more than traditional pay-TV viewers, it said. TV streaming is nearly universal among Generation Z and millennials at 95% or over, and 71% of baby boomers stream, it said. Twenty-three percent of boomers cut the cord in the past year vs. 25% of Gen Z viewers, and 51% added more streaming subscriptions, it said. Sports viewing is catching up to traditional pay TV, with 42% of respondents viewing via a streaming service vs. 62% for pay TV. Both types of viewers said they're very satisfied with their experiences and are going to continue watching. The survey was fielded July 24-30, with 2,852 U.S. 18-70 year-olds who watch at least five hours of TV per week.

Consumer intentions on buying new TV sets plunged in August from July, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Tech research company Toluna canvassed 3,000 U.S. homes through Aug. 25, finding 10.4% plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, down from 13% in July but up slightly from 10% in August 2020, said the board. Consumer confidence in August fell to its lowest level since February, as concerns about the COVID-19 delta variant and rising gas and food prices “resulted in a less favorable view of current economic conditions and short-term growth prospects,” it said. Though the resurgence of COVID-19 and inflation concerns “have dampened confidence, it is too soon to conclude this decline will result in consumers significantly curtailing their spending in the months ahead,” said the board.

Back-to-school sales were up 21% year over year for the five weeks ended Aug. 7, reported NPD’s retail tracking service Monday. “Given earlier start dates this back-to-school season versus the delays experienced in 2020, we expect sales in 2021 to slow later in the season and net out with revenue 12% higher” than in 2020, said NPD. It’s forecasting flat growth compared with the pre-COVID-19 pandemic back-to-school season in 2019.

Supply chain woes and “logistical challenges” prompted IDC to lower its PC shipments forecast for 2021, reported the company Tuesday. It’s now projecting 14.2% growth in global shipments this year to 347 million units, down from its May forecast of 18% growth. Tablet sales also are expected to grow this year, but only at a 3.4% pace, it said. The PC and tablet markets are “supply constrained,” but demand “is still there," said IDC analyst Ryan Reith. "The lengthening of the supply shortages combined with on-going logistical issues are presenting the industry with some big challenges. However, we believe the vast majority of PC demand is non-perishable, especially from the business and education sectors." IDC forecast global shipments of “traditional” PCs, including desktops, notebooks and workstations, will rise at a 3.2% compound annual growth rate through 2025, but tablet shipments are expected to decline 1.5%, it said: “Despite short-term supply constraints related to panels and ICs, notebook PCs will remain the main driver of future PC growth.”

U.S. business-to-business tech channel revenue jumped 9% year over year in 2021's first half, surpassing $50 billion, and was up 4% from pre-pandemic volume in first-half 2019, reported NPD Thursday. Software continued to be a “catalyst for growth as companies look to bolster their security capabilities” in support of remote work or hybrid work models, said NPD. Security software revenue through June increased 8% year over year, generating more than a quarter of all software sales in the B2B channel. First-half hardware revenue increased 10% on the 35% jump in sales of notebook PCs and the 22% rise in printers. “As businesses start to bring employees back to the office or switch from a completely remote to hybrid work model we expect to see some adjustments to the hardware and software priorities exhibited to-date,” said NPD analyst Mike Crosby.

Virtual MVPDs Sling TV and fuboTV were the sole gainers in Q2 among major pay-TV providers who give regular reports, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Sling TV added 65,000 subscribers in the quarter to reach 2.4 million. Sports-focused fuboTV added over 91,000 subscribers, reaching 681,721 subscribers, and Hulu+Live TV lost 100,000 subscribers to 3.7 million. The vMVPD figures don’t include YouTube TV or Philo, which don’t provide regular reports. Total pay-TV subscriber losses were 1.2 million in the quarter, down from 1.5 million in Q2 2020, said LRG. Traditional pay-TV providers continued to shed subscribers, with Comcast losing 399,000 to 18.6 million, while Charter lost 50,000 to 16 million, Cox 60,000 to 3.5 million and Altice 48,300 to 2.9 million. Among other traditional pay-TV services, AT&T Premium, including DirecTV, U-verse and AT&T TV, dropped 473,000 customers; Dish 132,000 to 8.6 million; Fios 63,000 to 3.8 million; and Frontier 30,000 to 423,000, said the report.