Global PC shipments grew 1.1 percent to 68 million units in Q3, reported Gartner Thursday. “The Windows 10 refresh cycle continued to be the primary driver for growth across all regions, although the magnitude of the impact varied according to local market conditions and the stage of the refresh cycle,” it said. Neither the industry CPU shortage nor the U.S.-China trade war “had a significant impact on PC shipments” in Q3, said Gartner. The shortage has “continued to ease,” and U.S. tariffs on China-built laptops “had a minimal impact,” because the List 4B duties on those goods was “pushed out” to Dec. 15, it said.

Consumer tech spending will reach $1.69 trillion in 2019, a 5.3 percent increase from a year earlier, said IDC Friday. The long-range forecast is for spending to reach $2.06 trillion in 2023, based on a 5.1 percent five-year compound annual growth rate, it said. IDC estimates 75 percent of all consumer tech spending this year will be for “traditional” technologies, with more than half of that on mobile telecom voice and data services, it said. “Emerging” technologies, including augmented-reality headsets, drones, smart home devices and wearables, will outpace the overall market with a five-year 13.2 percent CAGR, it said: “This growth will enable emerging technologies to capture nearly a third of consumer spending by 2023.” Smart home devices and on-demand services will be about 90 percent of emerging technologies spending, it said.

Interest in advanced TV solutions is growing among local and regional advertising buyers, said a Thursday FreeWheel report. It found 79 percent of ad buyers are “extremely or very interested” in using advanced technologies including video on demand, over-the-top video, addressable TV, advanced linear TV and streaming full-episode players. More than three-quarters of buyers surveyed expect their spending on advanced TV to increase over the next 12 months as they look to data-driven, audience-based TV advertising to deliver hard-to-reach audiences, reduce wasted impressions and improve cost efficiencies. Fifty-three percent found it easy to measure attribution on advanced TV, 10 percentage points higher than for network TV and cable (43 percent) but behind digital media channels, FreeWheel said. The shift toward data-driven and audience-based buying generally requires more automation to transact efficiently, and 29 percent of agencies said their process for buying local is completely or mostly automated. The online survey of 430 Strata platform users was fielded June 13-July 1.

IPhone overwhelmingly remains the smartphone of choice among U.S. teens, Piper Jaffray reported Tuesday. The company canvassed 9,500 teens with an average age just under 16, and found 83 percent owned an iPhone and 86 percent expect one will be their next phone. They spend 37 percent of their daily video consumption on YouTube, with Netflix closely behind at 35 percent. Amazon holds the majority of “online shopping mindshare” at 52 percent, 13 times higher than No. 2 Nike.

Accounting for time-shifted TV content is important to weighing viewing habits, blogged Nielsen Monday. In Q1, a quarter of U.S. adults spent nearly four hours weekly watching such content, it said, influencing them to be “more patient” viewers. In Q4 last year, traditional viewing beyond live or same day out to 35 days provided a 10 percent viewing lift, Nielsen said, translating that to 2.7 million more viewers. That quarter, delayed viewing beyond live-plus-same day -- up to 35 days -- helped drive ratings 40 percent higher for primetime dramas among all people and 65 percent higher among consumers 18-49.

Though the vast majority of chief marketing officers regard “brand” as a “critical driver of buyer behavior” for keeping existing customers, 35 percent “struggle” with managing a global brand and view that as their top professional challenge, said Gartner Monday. It canvassed nearly 400 CMOs in the U.S., Canada and U.K., May through July, and found many also expressed “frustration about keeping the brand relevant and aligned to the changing needs and interests of their target audiences,” it said. “Brand relevance and resonance can be extremely fluid based on a polarized marketplace, new disruptive business models and ever-changing consumer requirements,” said Gartner. Marketers are also challenged “with accurately tracking their brand investments,” it said. “Despite technology advancements and the creation of more sophisticated attribution models, not every brand expenditure can be precisely valued.”

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets took a sharp decline in September from August, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 U.S. homes through Sept. 13 and found 12 percent plan to buy a new TV set in the next six months, said the board. That was down from 13.8 percent in August, 12.4 percent July and 14.2 percent in September 2018, it said. Consumer confidence declined in September for the second straight month, it said. “The escalation in trade and tariff tensions in late August appears to have rattled consumers,” it said.

Total U.S. shipments of “personal devices,” including desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, will rise at only 0.2 percent compound annual growth rate the next few years, reaching 278.6 million units in 2023, reported the Daniel Research Group Tuesday. “Standard” phones will have the biggest CAGR decline through 2023 at 34.8 percent, while smartphones increase at a 1.8 percent CAGR through the period, it said. Total tablets will have an 8.2 percent CAGR decline, it said. The forecasts assume no U.S. recession and that Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods increase prices by 10 to 25 percent, depending on the product, it said.

Consumer optimism about the economy's future will fuel a 5 percent increase to $862 in the holiday spending of the average shopper, an OpenX/Harris Poll survey found. Harris canvassed a nationally representative sample of 2,000 U.S. adults in August, finding respondents were evenly split about whether they were better off economically than a year earlier, but 71 percent like their 2020 chances, including 77 percent of millennials, OpenX, an online advertising exchange said Monday. “Most shoppers across all major demographics are planning to spend the same or more as they did in 2018, with nearly a third planning to increase spending,” it said. “Millennials in particular drive a large percentage of the total growth for the market,” with 90 percent planning to spend the same or more than 2018, it said. Other findings: (1) One in five dollars spent this holiday will involve a transaction on a mobile device; (2) Two-thirds of millennials said they will be the “primary” shoppers in their households; (3) Holiday shopping already is “in full swing,” with half of all respondents reporting they start planning their holiday gift-buying before Sept. 1 and 37 percent having started actual buying; (4) Two-thirds of adults are watching streaming TV for an average of eight hours a week, and 42 percent predict they’ll become cord-cutters in 2020.

U.S. consumer tech revenue is expected to grow 3 percent annually through 2021, spurred by “desire” for big-screen TVs, wireless headphones, home automation and “rising interest in smart displays,” said NPD Thursday. “Steady single-digit growth is notable in a mature market where consumers are not replacing or repurchasing items at the same rate they did in prior years.” Migration to larger screens is lifting dollar sales in the category, and revenue on higher average selling prices, despite expected flat unit-sales growth overall, said NPD. By 2021, one in four TV sets sold will be of a screen size larger than 65 inches, “and those will account for 60 percent of the category’s sales dollars,” it said.