Samsung’s partnership with Apple, integrating the iTunes app into 2018 and 2019 Samsung smart TVs, could give Samsung an edge, reported Strategy Analytics Monday. More than 20 percent of smart TVs sold worldwide last year were on Samsung’s Tizen platform, 12 percent on LG’s WebOS, 10 percent on Android TV and 4 percent were Roku-powered models. Some 157 million smart TVs were sold globally in 2018, or 67 percent of all TVs sold for the year, SA said. In North America, 25 percent of smart TVs sold last year were Roku-based. Despite thin hardware margins, the TV “remains a strategic priority” for technology companies due to the size of the installed base and the opportunity to sell advertising on smart TV interfaces and generate revenue from over-the-top content services, said analyst David Watkins. Smart TVs have transitioned from “clunky web browsers” to “sophisticated streaming platforms and intelligent content recommendation engines,” said analyst David Mercer. Apple said in its Monday announcement (see report, this issue) the Apple TV app will also be available on LG, Sony and Vizio TVs.

Legacy video subscriber totals dropped below 90 million in Q4, reflecting changing viewer preferences (see this section, March 12), Kagan reported Tuesday, as 1.1 million Q4 MVPD subscription losses pushed the full-year drop-off to 4 million. DBS had more than half of the year’s loss. Virtual platforms partially offset the traditional multichannel decline, keeping customers in a subscription package of live linear channels, but gains to Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV didn’t offset MVPD losses. Traditional and vMVPD subs combined fell nearly 1.3 million for the year, while the residential penetration rate for both dipped to 75 percent in Q4. Cable operators lost 1.3 million subscribers vs. 997,000 in 2017, telcos lost 351,000 and DirecTV and Dish Network each lost more than 1 million, it said.

U.S. electronics and appliance stores added 2,400 jobs in February from January, but overall retail industry employment fell sequentially by 6,100 positions, said the National Retail Federation Friday. Retail jobs, which exclude those at restaurants, were down by 5,300 from February 2018, said NRF. “February saw unfavorable winter weather, and there was also carryover from the adverse effects of the government shutdown and sorting out of the recent volatility in the financial markets that may be evident in today’s numbers,” it said.

Tablet shipments, increasingly concentrated in holiday quarters, will have a negative 4.4 percent compound annual growth rate to 95.6 million units globally by 2023, down from 114.7 million this year, IDC said Thursday. Despite growth in the commercial segment last year, traditional PCs had declines overall and are forecast to slip 0.4 percent from 254.4 million this year to 250.5 million over the period. Detachable shipments are expected to grow 4.6 percent to 26.5 million, up from 22.1 million this year, as vendors turn attention to enterprise and education markets. Chrome-based devices, focused on education to date, will likely gain traction in the enterprise as more detachable models enter the market. Traditional PCs will continue along a “tough landscape” with falling desktop demand offset by emerging notebook opportunities, said IDC. Gaming PCs, seeing building momentum in 2018, will face some short-term challenges as the market works through older graphics processor inventory, it said.

Hours consuming video declined among U.S. broadband households last year, but consumers watch more internet video on a TV, reported Parks Associates Thursday. Hours consumers watched video on a TV grew last year for the first time since 2014, said Parks, reporting 55 percent of respondents say watching TV or movies at home is a top leisure activity. As over-the-top competition “becomes a battle for the living room, the challenge for device makers and content producers is finding the correct product mix to maximize both profit and utility,” said analyst Billy Nayden. With consumers’ experimentation with OTT waning, they will begin to resist adding “another monthly subscription,” Nayden said, so providers are moving to freemium and advertising-based models in anticipation of a pushback. Last year, some 19 percent of consumers subscribed to Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime Video along with another OTT service, compared with 13 percent in 2017. Consumers watched 25.7 hours of video weekly last year vs. 29.5 hours a week in 2016.

Global TV shipments increased 2.9 percent in 2018 to 221 million sets, partly with the help of a “sales surge” in the year’s first half, “as many consumers upgraded their TVs” in the lead-up to the World Cup, said IHS Markit Thursday. “Average new TV screen sizes are still growing at least one inch per year.” The trend toward larger screens is global, it said: “Even in Japan, where consumers have been resistant to buying large TVs, the average screen size increased year over year.” Shipments of 4K TVs reached 99 million sets and dominated the largest sizes in most world regions, it said. China led all 4K TV markets with 30.1 million sets shipped, and North America was second with 24.7 million, it said. In Western Europe, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of TV sets shipped in Q4 were 4K models, “the largest share of any global region,” the researcher said. Smart TVs continued to rise in popularity last year, said IHS. Smart TVs that support UHD through streaming services continued to rise in volume shipped in 2018. More than three-quarters of all sets shipped in Q4 had internet connectivity, including more than 85 percent in North America, which was 10 points higher than in Q4 2017, it said.

Pay TV’s subscription exodus continued last year, widening to 2.9 million from 1.5 million in 2017, reported Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. Satellite-TV providers suffered the most losses at nearly 2.4 million, shared by DirecTV with a 1.2 million drop and Dish Network TV at 1.1 million. Comcast led cable company declines at 371,000, followed by Charter Communications at 244,000. AT&T U-Verse was the lone gainer among MVPDs, gaining 47,000 subscribers, while Verizon FiOS shed 168,000 and Frontier Communications 123,000. “AT&T’s programming contracts no longer incented them to get a DIRECTV customer rather than a U-verse, or to switch someone from U-verse to DIRECTV, so they went back to focusing on the bundle in the U-verse footprint,” analyst Bruce Leichtman emailed us. VMVPDs gained 641,000 paying customers. Of the top video providers, cable had 47 million subscribers, satellite 29.1 million, telcos 8.9 million and vMVPDs 4 million. Since the industry’s peak in Q1 2012, pay-TV subscriber count has declined by 6 million, with 10 million traditional MVPD subscriber losses offset by about 4 million adds for publicly reporting vMVPD services.

Revenue from streaming music platforms in the U.S. jumped 30 percent to $7.4 billion in 2018, contributing three-quarters of industry sales, while downloaded tracks and albums fell for the sixth straight year to $1.04 billion, RIAA reported Thursday. Streaming services comprised virtually all industry revenue growth for the year from paid subscription services, advertising-supported on-demand services such as Spotify, and from streaming radio companies, including those that distribute revenue through SoundExchange, such as SiriusXM and Pandora. Adoption of paid subscription services grew 42 percent, passing 50 million subscribers for the first time, RIAA said. Services averaged 1 million new subscriptions per month. Total 2018 subscription revenue rose 32 percent to $5.4 billion, including $747 million revenue from “limited tier” paid subscriptions, such as Amazon Prime and Pandora Plus. Permanent album downloads fell 25 percent to $500 million, and individual track sales slid 28 percent to $490 million. At just over $1 billion, downloaded tracks and albums were 11 percent of total 2018 revenue vs. 42 percent in 2013. Revenue from physical products shipments dropped 23 percent to $1.15 billion, with CD revenue falling 34 percent to $698 million, their first sub-$1 billion year since 1986. Vinyl records tallied $419 million, 8 percent higher than the prior year and the highest since 1988. Vinyl generated more than a third of physical-format revenue. There's "rejuvenation in the industry," blogged RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier. Yet "many challenges" remain as nearing $10 billion in revenue "only returns U.S. music to its 2007 levels," he wrote. "Stream-ripping, and a lack of accountability for many Big Tech companies that drive down the value of music, remain serious threats as the industry strives for additional growth." For the Internet Association, "it's great to see the music industry acknowledge that internet-enabled music distribution is a bright spot," an IA spokesperson emailed. "Internet innovation has fostered a record bounceback for the music industry, and our members are proud of the work they do to enable more consumers to legally enjoy music to the benefit of everyone in the ecosystem."

Despite recent “buzz” about virtues of recruiting more women for key tech jobs, females own 5 percent of the tech startups in Silicon Valley and earn 28 percent of the computer science degrees at U.S. universities, IRYStec Software co-founder-Chief Technology Officer Tara Akhavan told a Society for Information Display webinar Wednesday. Women employed in “computing roles” peaked at 36 percent in 1991, declining steadily since, said Akhavan, SID marketing vice chair. “We’re going backwards.” Employee diversity adds “a huge amount of value,” she said. “Any business that invests in diversity has seen in a few years the growth and return on investment.” Preregistrations for SID’s Display Week May 12-17 in San Jose are up 10 percent over this date for last year's event, she said. Montreal-based IRYStec specializes in perceptual display technology designed to make screens “smarter, healthier and more readable” in all light conditions, said Akhavan on a YouTube video shot at last year's Display Week in Los Angeles. President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order two years ago blocking citizens of six Muslim-majority countries from getting new U.S. visas hit Akhavan when she was denied travel from Canada to Los Angeles for Display Week 2017 because she held an Iranian passport (see 1705230045). Akhavan helps produce Display Week’s annual Women in Tech forum.

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets declined in February from January, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 U.S. homes through Feb. 15 and found 11.7 percent plan to buy a new TV set in the next six months, down from 12.8 percent in January, 11.9 percent in December and 12.9 percent in February 2018, said the board. Overall consumer confidence rebounded in February after three straight months of declines, it said: “Consumers expect the economy to continue expanding.”