Smart assistant-compatible devices such as light bulbs, thermostats and door locks will grow to 1.6 billion units over the next three years, Canalys reported Monday. Improvements to usability and the arrival of less expensive devices will fuel growth, it said. Device sensors will give smart assistants new “senses” to make them aware of their environment, broadening use cases to areas including kitchen and lounges, said analyst Jason Low. The growing use of devices where the smart assistants are embedded in hardware is baked into the forecast, which predicts the installed base of such devices will pass a billion by 2022.

The 21.4 percent spike in 2018 online holiday sales was due to more spending per shopper vs. an increase in customers, Rakuten Intelligence reported Tuesday. E-commerce customers spent 15 percent more year over year, while the number of online shoppers grew 6 percent. Last year, holiday sales grew 20.4 percent. Rakuten divided the holiday season into two periods, with the first half, Nov. 1 through Cyber Monday, having 49 percent of the season’s sales. Although Amazon had record revenue, up 17 percent, growth trailed that of the overall e-commerce sector, shrinking its holiday season share by a point to 34 percent. Amazon’s share hit a low point on Black Friday and then steadily increased, peaking Dec. 18 when it had 50 percent of online sales.

“Video everywhere” will be first of three top tech trends to watch in 2019, the others being edge computing and artificial intelligence, reported IHS Markit. “Video’s increasing ubiquity is forcing significant industry change, as a growing number of players vie for consumer attention and revenue, and businesses adapt to cope with the rising demand.” The rise of online offerings and platforms, “including those from powerful new market entrants,” will be among video everywhere’s “driving forces,” it said Thursday. IHS also cited the “increasing penetration of mobile connected devices capable of capturing and displaying video,” and advances in “network and transmission technologies for sharing it” as contributing to the growth, along with “the resultant explosion of user-generated content and social video.” On 5G, early deployments will be “an extension of what we know best” in broadband, said the paper: “Don’t expect factory automation, tactile low-latency touch and steer, or autonomous driving to be ready on 5G anytime soon despite being touted as the chief 5G use cases."

After growth of 18 percent in 2018 over 2017, the global mobile advertising market is expected to slow to a compound annual rate of 13 percent through 2022 due to a rise in programmatic advertising, said a Friday Technavio report. Programmatic ads eliminate the need for middlemen and offer real-time data and insights, which advertisers can use to adjust ads while a campaign is running, said the report. A key market driver is in-app advertising with smartphone users spending more than 80 percent of their phone time on dedicated apps vs. browsers, leading advertisers to focus on in-app ads for their products and services. In-app ads enable developers to generate revenue without having to charge consumers for apps, it noted. In addition to being cost-effective, in-app ads can reach a targeted audience based on the data collected through apps and cache files, offering a better consumer experience than display advertising on the mobile web, said the researcher.

Supporting Adobe Analytics online sales data showing Apple’s iPad as a leading seller during the holiday season (see 1812200038), Localytics blogged Friday that iPads topped the list of new device activations during the period. Localytics determines lift in device activations by calculating the percentage change in new devices in the days around Christmas vs. new devices in the average week for the same period. IPad sales were buoyed by strong Apple discounting during the holidays at Amazon, Walmart and Target, where consumers saved $100 on the 32 GB model and $80 on the 128 GB model, it noted. In 2016, iPads dominated the leaderboards for device activations over the Christmas holiday, and last year Google’s Pixel 2 phones and the latest trio of iPhones took the first five spots. The analytics firm expected the iPhone XR, released in late October, to lead device activation lifts over Christmas -- as it did over Black Friday weekend -- but the XR failed to beat the newest iPad, iPad Pro and iPad mini 4, it said. Lift in activations around Christmas vs. the previous three weeks were 219 percent for the sixth-generation iPad, 125 percent for the iPad Pro, 108 percent for the iPad mini 4 and 99 percent for the iPad Pro 4 vs. 88 percent for the iPhone XR, it said. Still, the XR had a strong Christmas, with activations over the Christmas period growing by 88 percent vs. 49 percent for the iPhone XS and 36 percent for the XS Max, it said. In iPhone market share through Dec. 27, the iPhone 7 led with 15.91 percent, followed by the 6S (11.6 percent), X (11.57 percent), 7 Plus (10.54 percent), 6 (9.47 percent), 8 Plus (9.43 percent) and 8 (9 percent).

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets increased slightly in December from November, though overall consumer confidence declined slightly for the second straight month, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Thursday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 homes for the board through Dec. 13 and found 11.7 percent plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, up from 11.3 percent in November, but down from 12.8 percent in October and 13.9 percent in December 2017, it said. Though all indicators “still suggest that the economy will continue expanding at a solid pace in the short-term,” consumer expectations on job prospects and business conditions “weakened” somewhat in December, said the board: “While consumers are ending 2018 on a strong note, back-to-back declines in expectations are reflective of an increasing concern that the pace of economic growth will begin moderating in the first half of 2019.”

Connected TV advertising will get more airtime, said Instart Logic Chief Marketing Officer Dan Druker Friday. In other 2019 trends, voice ads will see “dramatic growth” as brands test the new format. Innovative ad models will grow -- placements, rewards, credits and other engagement models -- to reach consumers who don’t want to see digital ads. Publishers will push their native apps more heavily, along with content hosted through native apps such as Apple News, to bypass the ongoing threat of ad blockers, Druker said, and ad duration will become a new measurement of advertising value. “Getting an ad to be ‘viewable’ won’t be enough to satisfy progressive advertisers."

Eighty-three percent of U.S. households get internet service at home, same as in 2013, with 81 percent getting broadband service, Leichtman Research Group reported. Broadband reaches 98 percent of households with internet service at home, it said. Among households without internet service, 49 percent don't use a computer at home. The most common reason for not getting web service at home is lack of perceived need (cited by 46 percent of survey respondents), followed by cost (17 percent), internet access via smartphone instead (11 percent), and availability issues (9 percent). Just over three-fourths of adults access the internet via smartphone vs. just over half five years ago, and 9 percent of households get internet service only on a smartphone, up from 3 percent in 2013. Some 92 percent of households access the internet either at home or by smartphone. A November-December phone survey included 1,153 U.S. households.

TVs with screens 75 inches and larger had the largest dollar share gain of any screen-size category in the 12 months ended October, accounting for 10 percent of total TV dollar sales in that period, reported NPD's retail-tracking service Thursday. TV sales of 55-inch and larger screens grew 6 percent and were 63 percent of dollar sales and 32 percent of unit sales, it said. During the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, sales of 55-inch and larger TVs grew to nearly 70 percent of dollar sales and 43 percent of unit sales, it said. Holiday promotions were responsible for much of that activity, with 55- and 65-inch sets the top sellers by units, and 65-inch the top seller in dollars, it said.

Though more than four in 10 consumers expected to finish their holiday shopping by Wednesday, the “biggest procrastinators” will still be buying gifts through Christmas Eve, reported the National Retail Federation Wednesday. It estimates 134 million Americans will buy gifts on “Super Saturday,” the last Saturday shopping day before Christmas, it said Wednesday. NRF canvassed 7,000 consumers online Dec. 3-12 and found 34 percent expected to buy their last gift by Tuesday, 44 percent by Wednesday, 24 percent by Saturday or Sunday, 7 percent on Christmas Eve. NRF also found 4 percent planned to continue gift shopping after Christmas Day. Of consumers who said they finished less than half their gift buying, 44 percent said they were still undecided what to buy, 25 percent said they were too busy with other pre-holiday activities, and 22 “admitted being procrastinators,” said NRF. “Last-minute shoppers are looking forward to the weekend this year to finalize their shopping plans before the big day,” it said. “They are making sure to research everything from shipping deadlines to the best deals. Some are already looking to the days after Christmas to find treasures in the clearance bins.”