Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets increased sharply in May from April, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 U.S. households through May 16 and found 13.3 percent plan to buy a new TV set in the next six months, said the board. That was up from 11.1 percent in April, down from 13.7 percent in March and up from 12.5 percent in May 2018, it said. Consumer confidence improved in May for the second straight month, it said: “Consumers expect the economy to continue growing at a solid pace in the short-term, and despite weak retail sales in April, these high levels of confidence suggest no significant pullback in consumer spending in the months ahead.”

VMVPD subscriber growth slowed in Q1 to 5.8 percent from the end of Q4 compared with 11.8 percent growth in the year-ago period, Kagan reported Friday. VMVPD subscriptions reached 7.9 million at the end of March, accounting for 8.2 percent of overall video subs, it said. Dish Network's Sling TV and AT&T's DirecTV Now, accounting for 50 percent of vMVPD subscribers, continued to show signs of slowing momentum, with DirecTV Now logging a second straight quarter of negative growth. Combined cable, direct broadcast satellite and telco subscriptions fell by 1.4 million in the quarter, making it the largest single-quarter decline ever for MVPDs, it said. Satellite accounted for the bulk of MVPD declines, as quarterly net losses for DirecTV and Dish approached 1 million, said the researcher. Some 68 percent of U.S. households subscribed to an MVPD service in Q1; adding virtual subscriptions into the mix pushed the number to 75 percent, it said.

Nearly half of U.S. adults have some familiarity with robotics technology, and 84 percent are eager to use it in “everyday life,” a CTA study found. CTA canvassed 2,000 adults online in late April and found 90 percent expressing appreciation for the convenience of products such as robotic vacuum cleaners. There's “widespread enthusiasm” for educational robotics, it said. Though few consumers reported firsthand interaction with robotics in the retail or hospitality sectors, 83 percent of those surveyed said they “would be open to using the technology for services such as in-store assistance and room service.”

After three consecutive years of revenue growth in semiconductor shipments, including a 13.2 percent increase in 2018, IDC forecast Wednesday that worldwide semiconductor revenue will decline 7.2 percent this year to $440 billion. The market is expected to recover in 2020 and maintain a 2 percent compound annual growth rate the next few years, reaching $524 billion in 2023. It expects market consolidation will begin to accelerate as the industry “gets more clarity” on the U.S.-China trade war, it said. A “broad weakness in demand specifically centered in China” is to blame for the “current market downturn” in semiconductors, as is the “ingestion of excess inventories” in automotive, mobile phones and “cloud infrastructure,” said IDC.

April retail sales at electronics and appliance stores were down 3.4 percent year over year and 1.3 percent sequentially from March, reported the National Retail Federation Wednesday. Online and other non-store sales were up 11.9 percent from April 2018 but down 0.2 percent sequentially month over month, said NRF. April retail sales overall were down 0.2 percent from March but up 5.2 percent year over year, it said. Slower tax refunds and harsh weather in parts of the U.S. “may have been key factors impacting April’s numbers, but the fundamentals remain positive, particularly in long-term comparisons,” it said. “Despite there being a lot of volatility in the data from month to month, the long-term comparisons look good and the three-month average in particular is getting stronger.”

Some 22 percent of U.S. broadband households use an antenna to watch broadcasts, said Parks Associates Tuesday. Households with both antennas and pay TV subscribe to multiple over-the-top video services and are more likely to own connected entertainment devices than average broadband or pay-TV-only households, it said. Parks identified two camps of TV antenna users: those who use them exclusively for TV viewing as a no-cost way to get entertainment, live sports and news, and a second group that uses antennas and over-the-air content to supplement a larger entertainment portfolio. The second group is driving demand for universal discovery across multiple content sources to simplify the process of finding content they want to watch, said analyst Brett Sappington.

U.S. pay-TV providers lost more than 1.3 million net video subscribers in Q1, compared with 305,000 net losses in the year-ago quarter, said Leichtman Research Group. Subscriber count at the top pay-TV providers, representing 95 percent of the market, is at 87.8 million, breaking out to 46.7 million for cable, 28.3 million satellite, 8.9 million for phone and 3.9 million for the top publicly reporting internet-delivered vMVPD pay services. Satellite TV services more than doubled subscriber losses to 810,000, with direct broadcast satellite net losses reaching a new high and marking the fourth consecutive quarter of record losses. The top six cable companies shed 50,000 more subscribers vs. last year’s drop, reaching 335,000; top phone providers lost 105,000 video subscribers vs. 50,000 a year ago; and vMVPD services Sling TV and DirecTV Now swung to a drop of 75,000 subscribers vs. 405,000 net adds. Sling TV posted a net gain of 7,000 subscribers, while DirecTV Now had 83,000 net losses, Leichtman said. AT&T saw a net loss of about 625,000 subscribers -- 47 percent of the industry’s Q1 net losses across DirecTV, AT&T U-verse and DirecTV Now -- compared with a net gain of about 125,000 subscribers. Charter led cable losses with 145,000 net, followed by Comcast (120,000) and Cox (35,000). Q1 marked the third consecutive quarter of record pay-TV losses, coinciding with decisions by AT&T and other providers “to increasingly focus on long-term profitability when acquiring and retaining subscribers,” said Principal Bruce Leichtman. Also Tuesday, Kagan reported the shift from traditional multichannel video services, “on full display” for the past decade, is expected to increase moderately the next 12 months. The loss of content exclusivity is expected to shift the consumer base toward OTT video and fuel the growing ranks of online-only video households, Kagan said. While price hikes affected vMVPD subscriber growth, combined households relying on traditional and virtual multichannel services for video entertainment are still expected to account for 64 percent of occupied homes through 2023.

Thirty-one percent of U.S. homes own a smart speaker, CTA reported, up from 8 percent three years ago, marking the second consecutive year of almost 100 percent growth in household ownership. “Americans are embracing AI tech in the home at unprecedented levels,” said Steve Koenig, vice president-research, who said the rise in ownership indicates consumers endorse the benefits of artificial intelligence and voice recognition to help with everyday tasks. TVs (95 percent), smartphones (91 percent) and laptops (75 percent) are the most commonly owned tech devices in American homes, according to a survey of 2,608 U.S. adults, 18 and older, March 7-14. Seventeen percent of households own a smart appliance, led by smart light bulbs, thermostats, home security cameras and robotic vacuums, it said. Smart home devices are projected to see the biggest gains in household adoption in the next year, with first-time purchasers making up the largest proportion of prospective buyers, looking primarily for smart door locks, smart door bells and smart home hubs, it said. In personal audio, U.S. households adopted wireless earbuds and headphones in greater numbers over the last year, with growth outpacing wired versions, said CTA. Combined ownership of wireless earbuds and headphones ownership is at 48 percent of households. A third of respondents had a “strong intent to buy” a wireless unit, likely carrying wireless adoption beyond wired versions “very soon,” it said. Among wearables, smartwatch adoption grew by five points to reach 23 percent household ownership this year, narrowing the gap with fitness trackers, which grew four points to reach 29 percent of households.

Pay-TV trends, including eight straight quarters of accelerating year-over-year subscriber losses, are getting nastier, with losses materially accelerating starting in Q4, likely worsening in the traditionally weak Q2, Pivotal Research's Jeff Wlodarczak wrote investors Friday. Losses are accelerating even when vMVPD is included, he said. That acceleration is likely to grow with the emergence of cheap entertainment alternatives like the Disney Plus streaming service, the analyst said. Cable saw a 45 percent jump in subscriber losses in Q1, losing 560,000, he said, adding that direct broadcast satellite lost 640,000 -- a 70 percent year-over-year increase. Telco video losses were up 90 percent to 118,000. He said virtual MVPD subscriptions likely amounted to roughly 7.5 million. Q1 saw net new broadband subscriptions up 10 percent, household penetration hitting 83.5 percent. Cable had 99 percent of net new subs, and telco net new data subs were up for the first time in three years, he said. The 20-plus million DSL subscribers "are ripe for cable to steal" given increasing data usage trends that seem to eliminate the idea of wireless data substitution, he said. Netflix "has effectively already won" the global over-the-top race and Disney Plus could end up helping by accelerating pay-TV decline, he said.

The U.S. tech sector added about 18,900 new jobs in April, with 14,100 new hires in technology services, custom software development and computer systems design leading the monthly growth, said CompTIA Friday. The group analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics data and found internet search portals added 5,200 jobs and computer and electronic products manufacturing another 2,200. U.S. IT positions declined by an estimated 62,000 jobs, “reversing some of the hiring gains from earlier this year,” said CompTIA. The unemployment rate for IT occupations was 2.4 percent in April, up slightly from April 2018, it said. The number of April job postings for “core” IT positions declined by about 41,500 sequentially from the March figure, it said: “Software and application developers continue to be the most in-demand talent companies are looking to hire, with 78,000 job postings last month.”