After plateauing for three weeks, there are some indications that things aren’t getting any worse for AV professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. If anything, some may be turning a corner. But there are also signs recovery will take a while. In the most recent AVIXA COVID-19 Impact Survey, fielded May 12-13, 22 percent of AV providers said their companies were running at full capacity, up from 15 percent last week.
The share of AV providers in the latest survey indicating their companies had been negatively impacted by the pandemic was down to 61 percent, from 70 percent a week ago. That share is also now smaller than the share of end user customers citing negative impact—63 percent of end users say they’ve been impacted negatively, up from 58 percent last week.
This is the first time since AVIXA Market Intelligence began fielding the Impact Survey in March that a greater share of end-user customers cited negative impacts than AV providers. Such input bears monitoring as a leading indicator of future project work. Of end-user respondents saying their organizations had been negatively impacted, 78 percent said they’d canceled projects, a figure that has remained stubbornly high over that past month.
As you would expect, the share of AV providers reporting no impact/positive impact from COVID-19 has ticked up slightly to 39 percent from 30 percent. Of those AV providers, 40 percent were seeing a resumption of projects and 30 percent an increase in client inquiries. The share of all AV providers resuming staff hiring came in at 15 percent (7 percent outside North America), a very early and limited indication that some companies may be starting to ramp up.
That said, respondents’ predictions for when the bulk of their project work will resume continues to push further out. Only 14 percent of AV providers and 24 percent of end users now think projects will get back online in June. On the AV provider side, the most notable jumps are in those predicting July (up to 20 percent), September (up to 16 percent) and “next year” (leaping to 15 percent). End users looking beyond June are coalescing around August (17 percent) and September (20 percent).
Although at the highest level, survey respondents continue to be less negative about the week-to-week impacts on their businesses, more are growing concerned about revenues. Of AV providers citing negative impacts, 78 percent said they’ve seen declining revenues. That is the highest that figure has been since the survey began. Taken together with all respondents, it implies a weighted average of 48 percent of all AV providers feeling the effect of revenue reductions, up from 44 percent last week.
Looking at how companies are adjusting to the current situation, the share of AV provider respondents saying their companies have implemented pay cuts peaked this week at 40 percent. That is the first time salary reductions have outpaced layoffs/furloughs (33 percent), indicating companies continue to exhaust available options in dealing with the crisis.
To read the full results of this week’s Impact Survey, click here.
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