Portable memory (71 percent) tops the list of tech-related products consumers plan to buy in back-to-school shopping this year, said a CTA study. About three in five Americans who have done or plan to do back-to-school shopping expect to buy tech or tech accessories, said CTA, estimating $18.5 billion will be spent this year on technology, up 6.2 percent over 2015. Additional tech-related items for back-to-school shopping: basic calculator (55 percent), headphones (52 percent), scientific/graphing calculator (51 percent), carrying case (48 percent), laptop (44 percent), computer software (39 percent), external hard drive (23 percent), tablet (22 percent) and product subscription service (22 percent). Of the 95 percent of back-to-school shoppers who plan to visit physical stores to complete their shopping, 88 percent will go to a mass-merchant store, 56 percent to an office supply store, 47 percent to a department store, 43 percent to a discount store and 36 percent to a consumer tech store, said CTA. Of the 49 percent planning to shop online, 80 percent will visit an online-only retailer’s website, 69 percent will go to a retailer’s website, 35 percent will visit an auction site, 30 percent will shop at a manufacturer’s website and 13 percent will check out a free classified ad website, said CTA.

The biometric market is shifting away from consumer electronics and toward banking technologies that appeal to millennials, but “significant challenges” loom, said an ABI report Wednesday. Startups and payment card players are integrating biometrics into mobile payment services, smart cards and ATMs to improve banking security and authentication through innovative form factors, and the market shift is occurring faster than expected, said analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis. Global revenue for biometric banking technology is forecast to pass $4 billion by 2021, Pavlakis said. The need for better transaction security is driving the market, with North America alone having nearly $8 billion in payment card fraud, he said. Ease of transaction, increased security and better user experience are attracting customers to biometric banking, and millennials have been quick to adapt to the technology, said ABI. It cited Mastercard’s effort to integrate facial biometrics, allowing users to pay using selfies, and said banks worldwide are adopting fingerprint, voice and facial recognition for personal banking. Fujitsu and Hitachi developed a vein-recognition solution for ATMs, where vascular biometrics authenticate users by identifying the unique patterns in their veins. Atom Bank is testing a biometrics-based online-only banking approach, ABI said, and Diebold and EyeLock recently partnered on an iris-recognition ATM that leverages near-field communication and quick response code technology via users’ smartphones. But vendors adopting biometric banking applications face challenges with infrastructure upgrades, interoperability issues and data security, said ABI. “Security flaws are always a concern, and even more so when customers’ biometric data is involved,” said Pavlakis. To get widespread adoption, banks and service providers will have to convince clients that data is being stored and managed securely, he said.

Bluetooth headphone revenue overtook non-Bluetooth for the first time in June, accounting for 54 percent of headphone dollar sales and 17 percent of unit sales in the U.S., said a Thursday NPD report. Revenue in the headphone category rose 7 percent in the first half of 2016, with Bluetooth headphones up 42 percent in dollars, NPD said. The trend is likely to continue as consumers embrace “a wireless future,” said analyst Ben Arnold. “If, as rumored, the headphone jack is removed from the next iPhone, we expect this will continue to drive market share of the Bluetooth category,” Arnold said. Market leaders Beats and LG got 65 percent of dollar sales in the first half, followed by Bose, Jaybird and Skullcandy, it said. Bluetooth headphone sales have gotten a boost from dropping average selling prices, coming in 5 percent below those of first half 2015, it said. Promotions have helped fuel sales, said Arnold, as nearly 30 percent of Bluetooth headphones sold from January through June came in at less than or equal to $50 vs.16 percent in first half 2015.

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets fell in July from June for the fourth straight month, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 consumers for the Conference Board through July, and 12.2 percent said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, down from 12.7 percent in June, 13.3 percent in May and 14.5 percent in July 2015, the board said. The Consumer Confidence Index, which improved in June, “held steady” in July, it said: “Consumers were slightly more positive about current business and labor market conditions, suggesting the economy will continue to expand at a moderate pace. Expectations regarding business and labor market conditions, as well as personal income prospects, declined slightly as consumers remain cautiously optimistic about growth in the near-term.”

​The impending arrival of Bluetooth 5 and its technical enhancements will help boost Bluetooth-enabled device shipments to more than 5 billion units in 2021, ABI Research said in a Monday report. Bluetooth 5, coming late 2016 or early 2017, will include “significantly increased” range, speed and broadcast messaging capacity, said the Bluetooth Special Interest Group in a June announcement. With Bluetooth 5, the platform “will extend beyond cable replacements and smartphones to branch out into the wider IoT landscape and result in the development of larger scale networks that no longer rely on the smartphone as a hub,” ABI said. “Bluetooth is evolving from a smartphone and personal area network solution to a scalable, low-power wireless networking technology,” it said. “This development will unlock growth in beacons, home automation, building automation, lighting, and other smart city applications over the next decade and beyond.” By 2021, smartphones still will be 40 percent of Bluetooth product shipments, but that will be down 12 percent in volume share from 2015, it said.

More than half the world’s population doesn't use the internet, despite falling prices for information and communications technology, ITU said in a Friday news release about its 2016 ICT Facts & Figures report. About 3.9 billion of 7.4 billion people don’t use the internet, the ITU said. There are 2.5 billion internet users in developing countries, more than the 1 billion users in developed countries. But developed countries have higher internet penetration, it said. About 81 percent in developed countries use the Internet compared with 40 percent in the developing nations, it said. The report also said 2G mobile networks cover about 95 percent of the global population, and 4G LTE networks cover 53 percent. The number of mobile-broadband subscriptions has grown at double-digit rates in developing countries to reach a penetration rate of nearly 41 percent, but overall mobile-broadband growth has slowed, it said. The ITU predicted the total number of mobile-broadband subscriptions globally will hit 3.6 billion by year-end. Mobile broadband is cheaper than fixed, said ITU, with the average price of fixed more than twice as high as the average price of mobile, it said. “Global interconnectedness is rapidly expanding, however more needs to be done to bridge the digital divide and bring the more than half of the global population not using the Internet into the digital economy,” said Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.

Global PC shipments “beat expectations” in Q2 as the U.S. market returned to growth, while other regions continued to decline, IDC said in a Monday report. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 62.4 million units in Q2, a year-on-year decline of 4.5 percent, beating the forecast of a 7.4 percent decline, said the research firm. “Improvement in channel inventories appears to have contributed to the stronger results, along with an easier year-on-year comparison and easing of component supply,” IDC said. “Unfortunately, these types of supply-side drivers don't necessarily reflect a change in consumer purchases. Even PC channels remain fairly cautious following challenges over the past year, so the results are not likely to raise the forecast.” The U.S. market “saw a healthy jump in growth” in Q2, it said: “Despite uncertainty in various parts of the market, the competitive environment, strength of the U.S. compared to other markets, strong gains in Chrome shipments, and a relatively easy comparison to year-ago shipments contributed to year-on-year growth” of nearly 5 percent, it said.

With the possible exception of TCL, the biggest Chinese TV brands “have not invested in display technology to compete as fully integrated electronics players,” and that’s one reason they’re unlikely to make it onto the “global leadership” stage occupied by Samsung and other big global players. So said a Thursday blog post by Bob O’Brien, president of Display Supply Chain Consultants, the consulting firm he recently co-founded with former DisplaySearch CEO Ross Young (see 1606150021). “Japanese companies started investing in CRT technology in the 1960s, and Sony’s introduction of the Trinitron allowed them to capture the premium TV market for a generation,” said O’Brien, former director-marketing intelligence at Corning Glass Technologies. Most Chinese brands have refrained from making technological investments on the same scale, “and therefore rely on their suppliers to provide picture quality innovation,” he said. “The rising importance of China in the display and electronics industries cannot be overstated. China has become indispensable in the assembly stages of production, as well as a growing presence in both display capacity and as an end market. However, at a brand level the top Chinese brands lag far behind the global leaders, and given the structural changes in the industry, it is far from certain that any of them will be capable of achieving global leadership.”

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets fell in June from May for the third straight month, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 consumers for the Conference Board through June 16, and 13.1 percent said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, down from 13.3 percent in May and 14.3 percent in April, but up from 12.6 percent in June 2015, the board said. The Consumer Confidence Index, which declined in April and May, rebounded in June because consumers “were less negative about current business and labor market conditions,” the board said. But consumers were “only moderately more positive, suggesting no deterioration in economic conditions, but no strengthening either,” it said: “Expectations regarding business and labor market conditions, as well as personal income prospects, improved moderately. Overall, consumers remain cautiously optimistic about economic growth in the short-term.”

The outlook for Sprint is “bullish,” based on a meeting she had last week with top executives, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote investors Monday. “There are many good things happening at Sprint right now operationally, with its capital structure and with its network improvement,” she wrote. “The biggest challenge [Sprint] has right now is improving the brand image and adjusting its distribution to help with this brand building effort. That said, it is difficult for us to identify any near term negative headline to derail the shares beyond macro noise.” CEO Marcelo Claure characterized Sprint as "in a good place" on subscriber churn, Fritzsche said. Sprint said permitting for its small-cell deployment is ahead of schedule, she wrote. “Sprint carries more ‘tonnage per subscriber’ of data than any other carrier in the US -- yet it is using only less than 25 percent of its 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings.”