A 3.3% year-on-year ad spending decline in August, the third consecutive monthly ad spend decrease, was “far better than the market performed in July,” when ad spending dropped 12.7%, reported eMarketer Thursday, saying the August numbers “should ease some anxiety that July’s dramatic figures would become the norm.” Still, “until core issues plaguing the industry are resolved,” said analyst Daniel Konstantinovic, “the downturn will continue.” Konstantinovic called year-on-year spending decreases “inevitable” as post-pandemic “normalcy” resumes. “Digital ad spending reached record highs during lockdowns that increased the average consumer’s screen time, but now that society is reclaiming some normalcy, issues with addressability, measurement, and economic uncertainties have caught up with the industry," said the analyst. July figures were particularly rough due to the lack of major sporting events, he noted. Issues with addressability and changes in consumer spending habits are driving the industry’s big spenders to “permanently shift their strategies,” Konstantinovic said. The recent spending downturn came mostly from the top 10 ad categories, which had a 5.1% falloff, the most noticeable coming from carmakers, which cut spending 23% in June and 43% in July, he said. The money is going instead to customer experience and post-purchase marketing, he said. Worldwide ad spending on technology and electronics is expected to be up 25% this year vs. 2021, eMarketer said.

Global PC monitor shipments finished Q2 better than expected, but “a deteriorating macroeconomic environment with rising inflation and weakening consumer sentiment point to a challenging outlook for at least the remainder of the year,” reported IDC Wednesday. It estimates PC monitor shipments rose 2.7% year over year in the quarter to just over 36 million units, in stark contrast to the 15.7% Q2 decline in “traditional” PCs. “Backorder fulfillment for commercial monitors drove much of the volume for the quarter, where earlier shortages and prohibitive logistics costs delayed return to office projects,” said IDC. Emerging markets, excluding China and Russia, grew by more than 16%, it said, “helping to prop up a market beset by pullbacks in consumer spend.”

Shipments of cover lens modules will decline 4.5% this year to 6.01 billion units “as a result of factors such as stock clean-up, inflation and geopolitical issues influencing consumer device markets,” reported Omdia Wednesday. Omdia speculates shipments will rebound slightly in 2023 “if these influential factors can be relieved by the end of 2022,” it said. Mobile phone applications are about half of all cover lens module shipments, it said.

Consumers are more worried about inflation and the economy than they were earlier in the year, said Jungle Scout Thursday, saying three-fourths of the 1,000 consumers polled July-September believe a recession is “imminent.” Some 84% of consumers said inflation has affected their overall spending, up 9% from three months ago, and 55% of consumers plan to change their holiday shopping plans this year as a result. As of September, 30% of consumers had begun holiday shopping; 70% expected to start before Thanksgiving, it said. In Q3, 24% of consumers reduced spending by 24%; 13% by 1%-100%, it said. About 46% said they spent less on electronics, 17% spent more. E-commerce fared better than the overall retail market, with 32% of shoppers spending about the same in Q3, while 35% reduced spending, and 33% spent more, said the report. Nearly half of consumers said they're likely to buy a product directly from TikTok, and 65% said they have purchased from a streaming video platform.

Consumers plan to start their holiday shopping earlier this year, and they plan to increase their spend and turn increasingly to TV streaming for entertainment and information, a Roku-sponsored Harris poll found. Harris canvassed 2,000 U.S. adults with holiday-shopping intentions between July 27 and Aug. 5, finding shoppers plan to spend an average of $993 on holiday gifts, up 6% from 2021, said Roku. Streamers plan to spend 18% more than non-streamers ($1,011 vs. $855), it said. Holiday shoppers reported spending an average of 10.7 hours a week watching streaming TV, compared with 10.5 hours in 2021, 9.5 in 2020, 8 in 2019 and 4.7 in 2018, it said.

Many Americans anticipate a “leaner” holiday season compared with last year, making “fewer discretionary purchases to streamline their spending,” a MassMutual consumer survey found. The company commissioned PSB Insights to canvass 1,000 U.S. adults Aug. 16-22, finding 38% plan to spend less this holiday season than they did last year, it said. An equal percentage plan to spend the same amount as last holiday season, it said. More than half of Americans (56%) think the U.S. already is in a recession, it said. Of those who don’t believe the U.S. is currently in a recession, 49% think a recession is likely within the next year, it said. Other findings: (1) more than two-thirds (67%) of the sample feel optimistic about their current financial outlook, compared with 61% who were canvassed in the previous quarter; (2) The current economy is not dampening millennials’ views of their financial futures, with 32% feeling very optimistic, compared with 29% in the previous quarter.

The “confluence” of several “massively disruptive” political, economic and social headwinds is “reshaping” tech markets like 5G and smart home, reported ABI Research Tuesday. “We should heed one of the most important business lessons learned during 2020 -- that technology will not be a casualty of uncertainty, but rather a tool to overcome it,” said ABI analyst Stuart Carlaw. “Companies that embrace, invest in and deploy technology wisely will undoubtedly emerge stronger and better prepared to handle the next spate of challenges on the horizon, no matter the weather.”

Connectivity issues persist as a “major contributor” to the decline in vehicle infotainment satisfaction, reported J.D. Power Thursday. Automakers and tech companies “are working to create the most innovative and smart infotainment systems for new vehicles, but owners of newly launched models have lower satisfaction with their infotainment systems than owners who buy carryover vehicles,” it said. Neither the carmakers nor the tech companies are “taking responsibility as satisfaction is clearly on the decline,” said J.D. Power. “Simplifying infotainment systems and focusing on connectivity to smartphones and OEM applications would be a good start to turning around satisfaction.”

There “clearly” has been a change in expectations about the size of the PC market this year, “driven by the change in the economic environment,” HP CEO Enrique Lores told the Citi Global Technology Conference Thursday. Most of the change is happening in the “consumer space,” he said. HP’s “current expectation” is the industry will ship around 300 million PCs this year, “which is significantly lower than what we were expecting at the beginning of the year,” he said. “There are differences across segments, and also slight differences across regions,” he said. Most of the economic slowdown's impact is being felt in Europe and North America, while Asia generally “continues to perform well,” he said. “We see clearly a bigger impact in consumer than what we see in commercial, and in general, we see more impact on the low-priced categories than on the premium categories.” The situation in commercial PCs is “more complex to understand,” said Lores. On the one hand, many enterprise customers are actively investing “to improve the experience of their employees,” having not spent a lot of money on office equipment during the pandemic, he said. “On the other side, companies are also becoming more cautious in terms of how fast they invest money,” he said. “We are seeing also a slowdown in orders once we win these deals.” The “great thing,” he said, is that “the opportunity to refresh is there.”

Global revenue from IoT gateway devices is projected to approach $48 billion in 2026, reported ABI Research Thursday. Factors driving the growth of gateways over the next five years will include the transition to cellular from fixed line and replacement of existing 2G/3G gateways, plus rapid growth in the industrial and infrastructure markets, it said. By 2023, 3G gateways will become a “minimal share” of the market, with the 3G gateway installed base replaced by Cat-1 gateways and 5G gateway shipments beginning to accelerate in 2026, said ABI. By 2026, cellular gateway shipments will top 127 million units, rising at a 23% compound annual growth rate between 2021 and 2026, it said. But gateway growth won't go “unimpeded,” said ABI. Gateways engineered for smart home tech will continue experiencing more competition, it said: “More voice control front-end devices and smart TVs are including gateway functionality to complement their core services.”