Asus is integrating DTS:X Ultra audio technology in its Republic of Gamers (ROG) phone, said the companies Friday. The technology is said to give gamers a competitive edge by adding accurate sound sources in a 3D environment relative to players, improving their ability to hear and locate opponents and identify other key environmental sounds. DTS:X Ultra supports all immersive audio formats and was designed to deliver enhanced bass response, loudness and audio clarity customized for ROG headphones and phone speakers, DTS said.
Ikea and Sonos unveiled Wi-Fi speakers and audio lamps Friday that they said will be sold exclusively through the home furnishings retailer. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said in December (see 1812050012) the companies were working together on creating new ways to make sound “from interesting products” rather than designing inexpensive copycat powered speakers. Ikea bought a SoC from Sonos that will allow Ikea customers to control music with the Sonos app from products with “Sonos inside,” Spence said. The hope, he said, is to bring Ikea customers to the Sonos concept and then upsell them to another Sonos product over time. The relationship is part of an international expansion for Sonos. Ikea speakers with Sonos technology start at $99 vs. the $199 entry-level Sonos One at Sonos.com. It wasn’t clear how the speakers differ or where Ikea might have cut costs to bring out a Sonos-enabled speaker at half of Sonos' price; Sonos didn’t respond to questions. The Ikea website describes the Symfonisk bookshelf speaker as a “collaboration” between the two companies, allowing the speaker to integrate with other Sonos products. Consumers can stream “music, podcasts and radio via Wi-Fi without interruptions from phone calls or notifications,” Ikea says, and “the music keeps playing even when your phone or tablet is not around.” The speakers support all major music streaming services, it says, and users can control speakers individually “so you can play music in one room while the children are listening to an audiobook in another one, or play the same sound throughout the home.” The speakers are compatible with AirPlay 2, but they don’t offer voice control.
Fitbit cut revenue projections for the rest of the year after Q2 Versa Lite smartwatch sales fell short, said CEO James Park on the company’s Wednesday earnings call. The company cut full-year revenue guidance to $1.43 billion-$1.48 billion from $1.52 billion-$1.58 billion. Park attributed the Versa miss to Fitbit’s price and go-to-market strategy. It added Versa Lite in Q1, hoping to lower the barrier to entry for consumers looking for a quality smartwatch with certain core features and shifted to an everyday low-price strategy from a promotional one, resulting in a “lower promotional dollar spend and less sell-through,” he said. The watch received good reviews, but the company found “consumers were willing to pay more for a smartwatch with additional features or look for discounting versus everyday value,” Park said. Smartwatch revenue fell 27 percent year on year in Q2 and declined to 38 percent of total revenue, from 54 percent a year ago, said the company. Disappointing Versa Lite sales were offset by growth in trackers, with 59 percent of total revenue, up from 51 percent in the 2018 quarter, it said. Forty-one percent of Q2 activations came from repeat users. The company is testing premium services and plans a full launch in the fall, a "critical part" of changing the Fitbit model from one that's "episodic" with a customer device purchase to one that's "long term," said Park. It's planning to bundle services and devices, including giving away certain devices for free and then having a recurring revenue services stream associated with the device, he said. Fitbit Health Solutions revenue grew 16 percent to $24 million in Q2 and is on track to meet its $100 million revenue goal for the year, said the company. Of the $314 million in Q2 revenue -- up 5 percent year on year -- 33 percent came from Fitbit’s direct channel, it said. U.S. revenue declined 1 percent year on year to $181 million. Long-term, Fitbit shares could increase if services revenue returns the company to profitability, wrote Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter in a Thursday investor note. “However, it is taking longer than expected to roll out and expand these services,” said the analyst, saying in the meantime, device sales “are stagnating as both the novelty wears off and competition increases.” Shares plunged 21 percent Thursday to $3.31, a 52-week low.
Mobile wallet solutions provider Dynamics seeks an import ban on Samsung smartphones with the Samsung Pay feature, it said in a Section 337 complaint filed with the International Trade Commission. Dynamics says the Samsung mobile devices, which include the Galaxy S8, S9 and S10, copy its patented technology for magnetic multifunction emulators and near-field communication technology for executing financial payment transactions. Dynamics asked the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist order banning import and sale of infringing Samsung devices. Samsung hatched a scheme at January 2012 CES to steal the trade secrets of Dynamics and embed the stolen technology in at least 10 models of Galaxy smartphones since the S8, alleged Dynamics in a July 12 complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan (see 1907120024).
Average revenue per user for standalone pay-TV service declined 10 percent from 2016 to 2018 to $76, blogged Parks Associates Thursday. Consumers’ self-reported spend on non-pay-TV home video entertainment dropped 30 percent per month over the past seven years to just over $20 at the end of 2018, after peaking at nearly $40 in 2014, Parks said. Spending on packaged video media has steadily declined since 2012; movie theater spending fell by 50 percent from 2014 to 2018, it said, while spending on internet video is the only category to hold steady since 2014 at $8-$9 per month. With subscription online video the only growth category for consumer-paid video entertainment beyond pay TV, operators are taking different approaches to leverage the trend, said analyst Brett Sappington. Comcast and Dish are offering subscriptions to third-party over-the-top video services and integrating them into their interfaces to serve as content aggregators; others, including AT&T and Dish, are expanding their online reach, introducing virtual MVPD services, Sappington said. Twenty percent of U.S. broadband households don’t have pay-TV service, said Parks.
Oppo unveiled a prototype device with what it calls a “waterfall screen" design, a curved body said to make a mobile device “almost completely borderless.” The design is part of the company’s exploration of new form factors for smartphones, it said. Oppo’s Find X phone had a panoramic arc screen with a 93.8 percent screen-to-body ratio, it said.
Dish Network added Google Assistant voice control to its Hopper receivers via a software update that began rolling out Wednesday. Customers can use Assistant to ask questions about what they’re watching, receive weather updates, view photos on screen and control smart devices, it said. Customers can also use the Dish remote to ask Assistant general questions such as game scores and see answers on the screen, Dish said. Verbal and visual responses are said to be seamlessly integrated into the existing Dish voice control experience across all Hopper family receivers using cloud-rendering technology from TVersity. Customers with a Dish voice remote and all generations of broadband-connected Hopper, Joey and Wally receivers can access Google Assistant once they receive the software update, said Dish.
Q2 smartphone shipments declined 2.3 percent globally on “continued challenges” across most major world regions, said IDC Wednesday. Vendors shipped 333.2 million smartphones, a 6.5 percent sequential increase from Q1, it said. China and the U.S. had the sharpest quarterly declines, though the declines in China in the first half were “less severe” than those in the back half of 2018, “suggesting some recovery is underway in the world's largest single market,” it said. Apple had the worst Q2 decline, with iPhone unit shipments down 18.2 percent from Q2 a year earlier, said IDC. Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a fiscal Q3 earnings call Tuesday that iPhone sustained another double-digit revenue decline in the quarter, but the rate of erosion was less severe than in earlier quarters (see 1907310030). Apple maintained the No. 3 global position, but its 10.1 percent share was only 0.4 percentage points higher than that of fourth-place Xiaomi, it said. Samsung held firmly onto the No. 1 position with 22.7 percent share, said IDC.
Energous received FCC certification for a gallium-nitride-based near-field wireless charging transmitter for fast-charging earbuds, smartwatches, headsets and smart glasses, it said Tuesday. The WattUp NF330 transmitter underwent “rigorous testing” by Underwriters Laboratory and was determined to be compliant with regulatory requirements for RF, RF safety and electromagnetic compatibility, the company said. The transmitter delivers five times more charging power and nearly doubles system efficiency compared with Energous’ CMOS-based transmitter, said CEO Stephen Rizzone.
Upscale U.K. department store Harrods is opening an “OLED Zone” on the fifth floor of its London store, showing TVs from LG, Bang & Olufsen, Panasonic and Philips, said LG Display Tuesday. The display will include OLED point-of-purchase advertising. The store also features OLED TV technology in an interactive window installation through Sept. 1 in show windows surrounding door 5 of its Knightsbridge building, it said.