Vizio smart TV shipments fell 31% in Q2 to 1.1 million sets, driving device revenue 9% lower than a year earlier to $335.6 million even as the Platform+ business had 146% revenue growth to $65.5 million. Vizio generated more advertising revenue in first-half 2021 than 2020 total, said Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend on a call Wednesday (see Q2 materials here). Industrywide “supply and logistical challenges” contributed to shipment decline, as did tough comparisons with Q2 a year earlier as the COVID-19 took hold in the U.S., said Townsend. “The good news is, consumer demand remains robust and average unit prices continue to shift higher.” Amid the pandemic, it’s hard to predict “what will happen next” in the supply chain, said CEO William Wang. The semiconductor and components shortage situation is “getting better,” he said. With the delta variant “unpredictable, we don’t really know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Semiconductor demand “continues to outpace supply,” and Himax Technologies believes the “imbalance” could last “well into 2022,” said CEO Jordan Wu on a Q2 call Thursday. Himax supplies display-driver chips to TV, laptop, tablet and smartphone panel makers. Foundries are running at “more than full capacity,” but demand “shows no indication of abating,” said Wu. “We have entered into strategic agreements with foundry partners to cover both our short-term and long-term needs. We are in the process of entering into further such agreements as we speak, with some of them involving new foundry partners, leaving nothing untried to expand our capacity pool.” Himax projects Q3 revenue from large display-driver chips will increase more than 30% sequentially, said Wu. The monitor and notebook display businesses are expected to post double-digit growth, “benefiting from remote work and online schooling trends,” he said. For the TV segment, “we expect over 20% sequential growth in Q3, anchored by higher-end and larger-sized TVs, despite the slight dip in worldwide TV shipments anticipated for the second half,” he said.
Best Buy committed up to $10 million to Brown Venture Group for investing in entrepreneurs of color, said the venture capital firm Thursday. Best Buy and Brown, both Minneapolis-based, also agreed to work together to create “a stronger community of diverse suppliers,” and launch a “partnership program” at Best Buy Teen Tech Centers to help develop young entrepreneurs “through education, mentoring networking and funding access,” it said. Best Buy is “committed to taking meaningful action to address the challenges faced” by entrepreneurs of color, said CEO Corie Barry.
The scarcest commodity during the global chip shortage is “access to good information,” Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki told analysts and reporters in Tokyo Wednesday: “We have been able to control the situation, but going forward, we cannot remain complacent” on supply. In consumer electronics, “we do use a lot of semiconductors in various areas, so some availability of parts and components is a source of concern,” he said. Sony reported selling 2.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles in fiscal Q1 ended June 30, 30% fewer than in Q4 and down 49% from peak shipments of 4.5 million in Q3 when the PS5 was introduced. “We are beginning to see a decline in the stay-at-home demand that has continued since last fiscal year in the market for low-priced, small- and medium-sized products,” the CFO said.
Amazon and Best Buy will partner on a new lineup of Insignia F50-series of Fire TVs with quantum-dot QLED 4K video, Dolby Vision, DTS Virtual-X and Alexa voice control, said the companies Tuesday. The sets will be available at Best Buy stores and online and at Amazon.com later in the summer, they said. BestBuy.com featured four Insignia F50 models Tuesday as “coming soon,” in screen sizes between 50 and 70 inches, priced from $599 to $899. Amazon and Best Buy began their Insignia-Fire TV collaboration three years ago.
LG’s Tone Free FP8 wireless earbuds ($179) are shipping and will be followed this month by the FP9 and FP5, said the company Monday. The FP8s have active noise cancellation, a wireless charging case and Headphone Spatial Processing from Meridian Audio. The 3D Sound Stage feature uses upmixing to broaden the sound stage, said the company. Larger drivers and diaphragms are said to deliver more bass. Three mics in each earbud make the wearer’s voice clearer on calls and lower ambient noise, LG said. A UV LED built into the Tone Free cases was tested to reduce bacteria on the earbuds’ speaker mesh by 99.9% in five minutes while charging, the company said.
Chromebook shipments grew 68.6% globally in Q2 to 12.3 million units, despite the “tough comparison” with the 2020 period as the first full quarter of COVID-19 lockdowns, reported IDC Friday. Tablets grew 4.2% year over year to 40.5 million devices, it said. “Both categories are experiencing some slowdown from the boom in the preceding quarters.” Chromebooks are still in high demand and “even on backlog” for many education deals, but vendors have started prioritizing higher-margin Windows laptops amid the ongoing component shortages, it said. The “bigger concern” with tablets is that consumer demand “will slow much faster than Chromebooks or even the broader PC market,” it said. Lenovo leapfrogged Acer in Q2 for second place in global Chromebook share, but HP solidified its position as top brand, increasing its share to 14 points from 6.2 points over its nearest competitor.
EBay expanded its inventory of “certified refurbished” goods to include a selection of Galaxy mobile products sourced directly from Samsung Electronics America at up to half off their introductory pricing, the e-commerce marketplace said Thursday. It introduced the program in October (see 2010210045).
Hybrid work and virtual learning drove tablet shipments to their fifth straight quarter of year-over-year unit growth in Q2, but supply constraints impeded major vendors from meeting the elevated demand, “raising questions about what the second half of the year will bring,” reported Strategy Analytics Thursday. Vendors shipped 45.2 million tablets globally in Q2, about flat compared with Q1, but up about 5% from the 2020 quarter, said SA. Apple shipped 15.8 million iPads in the quarter for 11% growth from a year earlier, and raised its market-leading global share 1.8 points to 35%, it said. Samsung, the top Android tablets vendor, shipped 8.2 million tablets for 19% year-over-year growth, raising its share 2.1 points to 18%. “If higher component and transportation costs make their way into tablet price tags as expected, the competitive environment for mobile computing devices will be intense” in 2021's second half, said SA analyst Eric Smith.
Shipments of foldable displays for smartphones and notebook PCs will grow from 9.3 million units this year to 61.7 million in 2028, Omdia emailed Wednesday. Foldables' share of the segment will increase from 2.3% to 9.6%, it said. The 6.x-inch class will be the mainstream size for clamshell-type smartphones through 2028 due to its “attractive, compact design and relatively affordable price,” said the research firm. Low-temperature polycrystalline oxide will be the mainstream backplane technology for manufacturing foldable displays due to its lower power consumption, but LTPS will remain the alternative because of its cost advantage, Omdia said.