April imports to the U.S. of laptops, tablets and smartphones were little changed sequentially and double digits higher than April 2020, per Census data we accessed Wednesday through the International Trade Commission. The 59.81 million smartphones shipped here in 2021's first four months were 25% above the 47.89 million handsets in the year-earlier period. April smartphone imports to the U.S. from all countries under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8517.12.00 reached 15.09 million, up 27%. China generated 77% of April smartphone imports.
E-commerce sales grabbed 61% share of U.S. consumer tech hardware revenue in the 12 months ended March, compared with 48% in the 2020 period, reported NPD Tuesday. Online tech revenue share peaked at 68% in 2020's Q2 during the height of COVID-19 lockdowns, and “remained above the long-term trend" at 57% in Q1 2021, it said: “This was a full seven percentage points above Q1 2020, and 14 points above the pre-pandemic share in Q1 2019.” Though tech hardware sales moved online “at a more rapid pace than other general merchandise categories, the acceleration of this change, and the passing of the 50% milestone as a consequence of the pandemic, represents an important shift,” said Stephen Baker, NPD vice president-industry adviser.
IPhones global sales will generate nearly 40% of 2022's smartphone market, despite being fewer than 20% of units sold, reported Juniper Research Monday. “Apple has managed to consistently convince users to purchase higher-priced models through curation of a strong hardware and software ecosystem.” Apple’s average selling prices will rise in coming years, while Android ASPs will decline, “unless they can leverage new technologies like 5G or bring new design features, such as foldable phones, into the market,” said Juniper. Android smartphone vendors “will struggle to compete on a features basis,” it said. “Vendors that focus on a particular segment and investing in premium features, such as high-end audio and advances in camera technology, will not appeal widely enough to compete at scale.”
Global smartphone sales to end users, rebounding from their “steep decline” in 2020, grew 26% year over year in Q1 to just under 378 million handsets, reported Gartner Monday. “The improvement in consumer outlook, sustained learning and working from home, along with pent-up demand from 2020 boosted sales of smartphones in the first quarter,” said Anshul Gupta. Consumers started spending on discretionary items as the pandemic situation improved in many parts of the world and markets opened up,” said the analyst. Top-three vendors Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi maintained their positions. Samsung’s launch of under-$150 handsets boosted its unit sales globally, as did early shipments of its flagship 5G smartphones, said Gartner.
Sonos is “excited about the products we’re working on" in partnership with Ikea and will share more on June 15, emailed a spokesperson Monday. House Beautiful posted a product page Saturday trumpeting an upcoming Symfonisk-brand smart speaker and photo frame in white, priced at $199, adaptable with interchangeable fronts for wall mounting or floor placement. When we followed the House Beautiful link again Sunday, the listing had been removed. Ikea and Sonos partnered in 2019 on the Symfonisk product line that includes combination lamp-speakers that are still current (see 1908020042). Sonos CEO Patrick Spence referenced upcoming new Symfonisk form factors on a recent earnings call (see 2105210037).
HP has seen an “evolution” in recent months in the types of component shortages that are hampering the vendor from fulfilling all its notebook PC demand, CEO Enrique Lores told a Bernstein virtual investor conference Thursday. “Two quarters ago, we were talking mostly about processors” in short supply, plus LCD display panels for laptops, he said. “The situation on processors has significantly improved and now we see the biggest shortages in panels, not driven by the glass, but driven by the components that panels use.” Shortages also persist “in what we call low-cost components,” he said. Those can include Wi-Fi controllers, card adds, bus controllers -- “almost any other component that is necessary to build a PC,” he said. “This is where we expect to see the highest pressures on cost.” HP expects it will be passing along the inflationary costs in the “medium term,” said Lores. But in the short term, “some contracts we can reprice, some other contracts we cannot,” he said.
Thirty-nine percent of U.S. homes said they were likely to buy consumer tech gear within 12 months, when surveyed early in Q2, reported CTA Thursday. That's an 11-point increase from the same 2020 survey. The association canvassed 2,400 adults online April 9-18, finding 37% plan to buy new smartphones in the next year, compared with 29% who plan to buy new TVs. Ownership of 4K Ultra HD TVs surpassed a majority of U.S. homes for the first time, said CTA. The sets are installed in 52% of TV households, a 16-point increase from a year earlier and the largest growth for any product category surveyed. CTA estimates overall TV ownership at 91% of U.S. homes, edging out smartphones (90%) as the most commonly owned tech device. TV ownership was 98% in 2013 and 97% in 2014, but has been "steadily decreasing over the years as consumers transition to watching content" on their mobile devices, said a spokesperson. The year-over-year decline to 91% in 2021 from 93% in 2020 was within the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 2%, she said. Nielsen had a different take when it pegged TV penetration last summer at 96.2% of U.S. homes, trending 0.1% higher from a year earlier. Nielsen's estimate, its most recent available, was the percentage of total U.S. homes with TVs receiving traditional signals via over-the-air antenna, cable, satellite or broadband.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is navigating the “industry-wide tightening and cost inflationary trends” as best it can by taking “proactive inventory buffering measures to position us well for the second half,” said CEO Antonio Neri on a call Tuesday for fiscal Q2 ended April 30. “We will continue to take additional inventory actions as appropriate in alignment to the market demand” by leveraging “long-term agreements with our suppliers,” he said. HPE sees “further industry-wide tightening and inflation persisting in the near term,” said Chief Financial Officer Tarek Robbiati.
Upcoming flagship smartphones will have to differentiate with advanced functionality such as Wi-Fi 6 and ultrawideband to continue to stand out at the high end of the market as 5G adoption becomes more mainstream, said ABI Research's David McQueen Tuesday. Other features expected to set flagship phones apart are fast-charging technology, foldable and rollable displays, and improved cameras. 5G handsets were largely immune from supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, leading to a more diverse device landscape with a wide variety of prices, the analyst said: “The mobile market is quickly transitioning to 5G and many leading OEMs are pushing ever-deeper into the lower-priced 5G smartphone segment.” ABI forecasts 681 million 5G handsets will ship in 2022. The researcher expects 5G integration and always-on connectivity to appear in tablets, Chromebooks and laptop PCs “as the portable computing and mobile value chains converge more than ever.” COVID-19 boosted demand for mobile computing products, and 5G will become a more prominent feature in high-end products from Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. “Dozens” of always-on 5G portable devices, including tablets and notebook PCs, will hit the market this year, exceeding 10 million next year, said ABI.