Market Intelligence Reports

• The AV Sales Index (AVI-S) for July leveled back out at 52.7. While still showing expansion growth is slower than a year ago when the AVI-S was at 57.1.  Rising costs and inflation has kept the summer builds for sectors like education slower than years past.

   

• July activity reflected steady expansion across workplace technology, digital signage, immersive experiences, networked AV, and strategic acquisitions. Overall, the month points to a Pro AV market pursuing practical growth while continuing to navigate broader economic pressures, including trade tensions, supply chain disruptions, energy cost increases, and geopolitical uncertainty.

• The July AV Employment Index (AVI-E) remained in slight expansion at 51.8.  While a few respondents are experiencing hiring freezes others are struggling to find enough talented employees, causing current employes to feel overworked. The latest official labor data show soft job growth but a still-stable unemployment rate, with weaker participation suggesting some cooling in labor-market momentum.

The preliminary North American AV Sales Index (AVI-S) remained steady at 56.2 in July, while the non-North American Sales index increased three points to 56.7.  International Pro AV markets showed healthy expansion in July 2026, driven by strong demand in live events, digital signage, LED display deployments, collaboration technologies, and previously delayed projects moving into implementation. Growth was particularly supported by activity across Asia-Pacific, Europe and other international markets, although tariff pressures, elevated hardware costs, and uneven demand in corporate and hospitality sectors continued to constrain broader acceleration.

On the employment side, the preliminary North American AVI‑E dropped to 51.9. The non‑North America AVI‑E dropped two points to 51.2 showing contraction for July.

^{₁Due to the small sample, the North American and International indexes are based on a 3-month moving average. The July 2026 index is preliminary, based on the average of July 2026 and June 2026 and will be final with August 2026 data in the next report.} 

The survey behind the AVIXA Pro AV Business Index was fielded to 2,000 members of the AVIXA Insights Community between July 28, 2026 and August 5, 2026. A total of 267 AV professionals completed the survey. Only respondents who are service providers and said they were “moderately” to “extremely” familiar with their company’s business conditions were factored in index calculations. The AV Sales and AV Employment Indexes are computed as diffusion indexes. The monthly score is calculated as the percentage of firms reporting a significant increase plus half the percentage of firms reporting no change. Comparisons are always made to the previous month. Diffusion indexes, typically centered at a score of 50, are used frequently to measure change in economic activity. If an equal share of firms reports an increase as reports a decrease, the score for that month will be 50. A score higher than 50 indicates that firms, in the aggregate, are reporting an increase in activity that month compared to the previous month. In contrast, a score lower than 50 is a decrease in activity.