Fiat Chrysler (FCA) picked Harman and Google to deliver a new connected-car “ecosystem” for vehicle owners globally, said the automaker Tuesday. “Key components” will begin debuting “in phases across global regions,” and all new vehicles “will be connected” by 2022, it said. “Off-board,” the system will use architecture based on Harman’s Ignite cloud-based platform, said FCA. “On-board,” the Android-powered system’s “app-based environment” will provide fresh content updates over the air, plus “seamless” wireless integration with Android mobile devices, it said. Harman, which Samsung bought two years ago for $8 billion (see 1703130001), launched the Harman Ignite platform at CES 2017 to integrate management of connectivity, analytics, applications and devices (see 1701040031).
Video collaboration and gaming fueled Q1 growth at Logitech, said CEO Bracken Darrell on a Tuesday earnings call. Revenue grew 9 percent to $2.79 billion, a company record, it said. Trends fueling growth, said Bracken, include the movement toward equipping offices for cloud-based video calls, surging, growth of PC game play, and associated peripherals, and the “explosion of content creators.” Content is being created by professionals and by consumers in a "Starbucks" or a bedroom, dorm room or outdoors “right now,” said Bracken. He cited an employee’s five-year-old niece is infatuated with YouTube videos from a seven-year-old boy whose Ryan ToysReview show pulled in $22 million last year. Content creators edit, stage and format at a desk using a PC -- and peripherals Logitech sells -- such as a keyboard, mouse, webcam and microphone. Logitech's PC peripherals business has grown for six consecutive years without “specifically designing for that user,” he said. Vincent Pilette, chief financial officer, is leaving Logitech at the end of May to pursue a senior role at an undisclosed company, said Darrell. Nate Olmstead, who joined as vice president-finance this year, will be interim chief financial officer.
Following the “recent debacle with foldable screens,” full-display smartphones will initially be best realized through better biometrics, said ABI Research Tuesday. Vendors are either increasing screen-to-body size ratios or offering a foldable or flexible screen to enable full-display phones, said analyst Stephanie Tomsett, but they can also get there by reducing the need for sensors, buttons and other features on the front screen. Camera-based recognition will be a dominant smartphone biometric technology, reaching 487 million shipments in 2023, followed by in-display fingerprint scanners with nearly 228 shipments in in the same time frame, said Tomsett. On possible future technologies, Apple has a patent for an iPhone that allows the screen to be a speaker, Samsung has a patent for a smartphone that allows the screen to be a camera and LG has a smartphone patent outlining a full-screen, all-display device, said the analyst.
The U.S. consumer tech sector in 2017 “directly provided” 5.1 million jobs, generated $2.1 trillion in output and contributed $1.1 trillion to GDP, said a CTA-commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers report Monday. PwC estimates the sector’s “economic multiplier,” which calculates the ratio of the sector’s total economic contribution to its “direct effect,” ranges 2.03 (for total output) to 3.59 (for employment). The average consumer tech “direct job” paid roughly $111,000 in salary in 2017, about 82 percent higher than that of the overall economy, said the firm. “Including indirect and induced employment, the average labor income per consumer tech-supported job is about $72,000, or 19 percent higher than the average for the overall economy.” CTA President Gary Shapiro said tech's "effects go beyond just the products our industry sells -- we drive productivity for virtually every sector."
Global home audio equipment shipments grew 20 percent year on year in Q4, said Futuresource Friday. Amazon topped the leader board, taking the post from Harman, which dropped to second, but Harman’s strong performance in Q1 and Q3 pushed it to top audio vendor for the year, said analyst Guy Hammett. Global home audio shipments reached nearly 59 million shipments in Q4, representing $6.8 billion. Integrated voice assistant product shipments climbed 42 percent in the quarter from 28 percent growth in the year-ago quarter. Smart speakers are driving audio demand in developed markets, up 42 percent in North America and 73 percent in Western Europe, it said. North America saw 12 percent growth across all audio product segments.
Unit shipments of wireless-power receivers and transmitters for all applications and product segments grew 37 percent globally last year to 600 million units and will reach 2.1 billion in 2023, said IHS Markit. “Wireless power technology continues to evolve rapidly, with reach expanding beyond smartphones to wider applications and product segments.” Mobile phones were 71 percent of all wireless-power receivers shipped last year and are expected “to continue to drive this market over the next five years.” Smartphone OEMs are using wireless charging as a “market differentiator to promote flagship models,” but the feature is expected to “build” in more mid-priced devices, it said Wednesday.
The Samsung website showed no results when we hit the “where to buy” button Thursday for the indefinitely delayed Galaxy Fold smartphone, initially slated to go on sale Friday, before prerelease reviews reported that broken screens on the device were common (see 1904240027). Samsung's website listed AT&T and T-Mobile as carriers for the bendable Fold, but when we hit the “where to buy” button, the U.S. map directing shoppers to available markets came up empty, and a pop-up read “no online retailer.” When we searched for Samsung Fold at AT&T.com, a “page unresponsive” notice came up and we were redirected to a page for the Galaxy S10, S10+ and S10e phones, due in stores Friday. T-Mobile defaulted to a case for the Tab E Incipio tablet, which has a folding base. Verizon responded to a Fold search with the series 10 Galaxy phones in a redirect, along with a Samsung Chromebook Plus, Galaxy Book 2 and Belkin “tri-fold” case for the Galaxy Tab E. At Sprint, the first phone to pop up in a Fold search was the iPhone XR, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S10e. Meanwhile, Samsung emailed customers they can score a free SmartThings hub and up to $250 for a tablet trade-in when they buy the new Tab S5e tablet. The S5e starts at $399 for a 10.5-inch Wi-Fi version. At Samsung.com, the company is offering no-interest financing for the tablets on a six-month payment plan.
The iPhone XS, XS Max and XR models launched last fall accounted for 59 percent of U.S. iPhone sales in the March quarter, reported Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Wednesday, with the lower priced XR at 38 percent. The researcher estimated the newest models had similar sales rates as last year’s newest models, at about 60 percent of total sales, at an average selling price of about $800, down from the December quarter. As Apple begins to emphasize services over hardware, “results are highly uneven,” said analyst Mike Levin. CIRP estimated 48 percent of U.S. users paid for iCloud storage in the quarter, 3 percent bought AppleCare support, 21 percent used Apple Music and 13 percent used the legacy iTunes music service. ICloud, which integrates easily with Apple devices and “solves a common storage problem at a modest cost,” had the highest penetration, CIRP said. AppleCare warranties “sell poorly,” against “intense competition” from mobile phone carriers, retailers and other warranty providers, said Levin. Apple faces similar competition in music from Spotify, Amazon, Pandora and others, he noted. Findings were based on a survey of 500 U.S. Apple customers who purchased an iPhone, iPad, Mac computer, or Apple Watch January-March.
Savant introduced powered architectural speakers with Power over Ethernet connectivity. Each speaker can run up to three passive speakers and will self-regulate output power.
Samsung’s Galaxy Fold smartphone is “Fragile with a capital ‘F,’” which was the “big takeaway” of iFixit’s teardown analysis, said the right-to-repair company Wednesday. Samsung this week postponed the Galaxy Fold launch from Friday to a date not certain after online reviewers reported the displays on test samples Samsung sent them broke a day or two after being unboxed (see 1904220028). The Galaxy Fold “is, without question, an ambitious first-generation device,” said iFixit. Time will tell if the problems reviewers encountered are just “temporary setbacks” or the prelude to a “a full-blown AirPower-style product cancellation,” it said. Apple scrapped the AirPower wireless charging mat’s commercial introduction after concluding internally the product wasn't up to snuff (see 1903290062). The Galaxy Fold has a “ton of entry points for dust and other foreign matter to make their way inside, and there are so many different ways for the screen to break,” said iFixit. Its main bezels are “super slim,” it said. “They barely cover two millimeters of display, while leaving a 7 mm gap at the top and bottom. That doesn’t seem like much protection.” Samsung didn’t comment.