Mobile service providers (MSPs) should concentrate on developing platforms in technology, restructuring, ecosystem and partnership, go-to-market, and mergers and acquisitions to be competitive in the markets of tomorrow, ABI Research reported Tuesday. “While many MSPs have started developing the right initiatives to move past their legacy telco structures and services, none of them have yet fully transformed themselves, nor do they have a comprehensive strategy to become a digital enabled player to compete with web-scale giants (such as Amazon and Google), and to seize new vertical opportunities,” ABI said. “There is no blueprint for what the MSP of the future looks like, but there are lessons to be learned all around the market as various MSPs are leading the way and providing examples to follow in different areas.”

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan's pay package exceeds $103.2 million, placing him third on As You Sow’s list of the S&P 500's “most overpaid” chief executives for 2019, said the social responsibility group Thursday. Its fifth annual report used a “regression analysis” of proxy statements and other public filings to compute “excess CEO pay” on the basis of “total shareholder return,” plus the percentage of shareholders who voted against their CEOs’ pay packages, said the group. Based on those metrics, the report pegs Tan’s excess pay at nearly $86.9 million, partly because a large proportion of Broadcom shareholders -- 38 percent -- voted against his pay package. Tan tried to spearhead Broadcom's takeover of Qualcomm last year, but was forced to withdraw the bid after President Donald Trump killed it on national security grounds (see 1803150060). Disney CEO Bob Iger ranked sixth with a $36.3 million package and excess pay of $22.4 million, said the report. It said 55 percent of Disney shareholders voted against Iger’s package, placing Disney eighth on the list of highest percentage of dissenters. It was the second year in a row Iger placed among the top 25 most overpaid CEOs, said the report. Broadcom and Disney didn’t comment. “Overall CEO pay continues to increase,” but so, too, does shareholder “opposition to high CEO pay,” said the report.

Holiday retail sales increased 2.9 percent to $707.5 billion, reported the National Retail Federation Thursday, well short of the group’s early October forecast for a 4.3-4.8 percent increase over 2017 (see 1810030038). “All signs during the holidays seemed to show that consumers remained confident about the economy,” said NRF President Matthew Shay said. “However, it appears that worries over the trade war and turmoil in the stock markets impacted consumer behavior more than we expected. There’s also a question of whether the government shutdown and resulting delay in collecting data might have made the results less reliable. It’s very disappointing that clearly avoidable actions by the government influenced consumer confidence and unnecessarily depressed December retail sales.”

IPTV overtook direct-to-home last year as No. 2 MVPD type after cable, with 23.4 percent of the 1.07 billion-household global market, Kagan reported Wednesday. IPTV grew 14.3 percent last year, but cable is projected to decline at a 0.3 percent compound annual growth rate by 2023 due to migration to IPTV in Asia Pacific and Western Europe. IPTV’s projected 7 percent subscriber CAGR in the period is second to pay digital terrestrial TV at 8.5 percent. Cord-cutting effects are primarily seen in North America where multichannel subscribers, revenue and penetration are projected to decline for the foreseeable future. Oversaturated markets including Singapore and Hong Kong are experiencing declines on cord cutting. In Europe, the biggest threat to traditional multichannel integration of over-the-top and catch-up TV services, along with ability to stream channel packages via hybrid boxes, Kagan said. The global multichannel market grew 3.1 percent last year, with China, India and the U.S. accounting for 57 percent of subscribers. By 2023, China and India are expected to account for half.

Global enterprise and consumer spending on information and communication technologies will grow 4 percent yearly, reaching $4.6 trillion by 2022, IDC forecast Monday. Business ICT spending will get “caught in the crossfire of headwinds and tailwinds over the next five years as a softening global economy puts pressure on the ability of organizations to increase technology budgets,” it said: Amid "the U.S.-China trade war," the many businesses "increasingly dependent on China" could "continue their pivot away from the U.S." while "the conflict opens up opportunities to increase exports to the U.S." Commercial and government customers will be about 64 percent of total ICT spending by 2022, consumers the rest, it said: “Increasing saturation” in smartphones and tablets will cause consumer spending growth to “lag behind” spending elsewhere.

Electronics and appliance stores added 1,500 retail jobs in January from December, as overall retail industry employment increased by 14,800 jobs, said the National Retail Federation Friday. Though the overall January jobs figure was down by 15,100 from the same 2018 month, “today’s numbers reinforce that the economy is in a good place and businesses are seeing demand for goods and services and consequently hiring more workers,” said NRF.

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets increased sharply in January from December, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 U.S. homes through Jan. 17. Thirteen percent plan to buy a new TV set in the next six months, up from 11.9 percent in December, 11.3 percent in November and 12.2 percent in January 2018, said the board. Overall consumer confidence in January declined for the third straight month, it said, blaming “financial market volatility” and the government shutdown for breeding consumer pessimism. “Shock events” such as government shutdowns “tend to have sharp, but temporary, impacts on consumer confidence,” it said: “It appears that this month’s decline is more the result of a temporary shock than a precursor to a significant slowdown in the coming months.”

U.S. consumers 18 and older will spend an average of $81.30 for a total of $14.8 billion in the run-up to the Feb. 3 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams, a National Retail Federation survey found. NRF canvassed 7,500 consumers 18 and older Jan. 2-9 before the Super Bowl team matchups were known, and found the anticipated average spend was virtually unchanged from last year’s $81.17, it said Thursday. The biggest spenders are consumers in the 35-44 age bracket at an average $123.26, and the lowest are those 65 and older at $40.97, it said. Consumers in the Northeast plan to spend the most, at an average $94.89, followed by those in the West at $84.01, the South at $79.09 and the Midwest at $69.24, it said. “Spending is expected to be at one the highest levels we’ve seen,” said NRF CEO Matthew Shay. “Retailers are ready whether you need food, team jerseys, decorations or a new TV.”

Over-the-top services will speed their global expansion over the next five years, with more than 310 million connected households having at least one by 2024, blogged Parks Associates Wednesday. As content companies and service providers look to capture more revenue, Western Europe and other global markets will have more subscriber growth than the U.S., Parks said. Challenges for companies looking to expand globally include device preferences that vary by country and higher rates of mobile high-speed services with no access to fixed services, it said. U.S. households prefer smart TVs or streaming media devices, for instance. Content is the ultimate determination of a service’s success, but “small variations in pricing and user experience can cause significant adoption differences across countries,” said analyst Brett Sappington.

That consumers by 2023 will watch 20 percent fewer minutes of video advertising daily than they do today is one of several “shifting consumer behaviors” that will be a “destabilizing threat” to chief marketing officers who don’t adjust, predicted Gartner Monday. It recommended “embracing short-form video ads.” As “voice interfaces” continue to improve, “consumers are beginning to embrace the convenience,” another trend to watch, said Gartner. Consumer concerns about how marketers use the information gleaned through voice assistants “and where it is all stored continue to mount,” it said. Gartner found 44 percent of consumers “would be more willing to use a virtual personal assistant app if they knew that all their personal data would only remain on the device,” it said. “Regulatory changes on the use of customer data now threaten to hinder many common marketing practices.”