The smartphone market is spiraling toward its third straight year of declining shipments, reported IDC Wednesday. It's forecasting a 0.8 percent worldwide volume decline to 1.39 billion handsets, blaming longer replacement cycles, challenges in China and geopolitical headwinds. Second-half shipments are expected to reverse course, growing 2.3 percent from 2018 on a “new high for technological innovation” from foldable and 5G phones, said analyst Ryan Reith. The nascent 5G era is expected to “ramp quickly,” he said, and though uses for upgrading to a 5G device aren’t yet compelling, adoption is expected to reach “significant numbers” beginning next year. IDC expects 5G smartphone shipments to account for roughly one out of every four smartphones shipped globally in 2023 out of a total 1.54 billion. In 2019, 3G smartphone shipments will fall 25.4 percent to 57.5 million, while 4G phones inch ahead 0.2 percent to 1.3 billion with 95 percent market share, said IDC. Some 6.7 million 5G phones are forecast to ship this year, headed to 401.3 million in 2023 when 5G phones are forecast to grab 26 percent share vs. 72 percent for 4G models.
Cloud-based telecom company Ooma is looking toward subscription services to drive residential and commercial revenue growth, said Chief Financial Officer Ravi Narula on a Q4 earnings call Tuesday. Revenue for the quarter ended Jan. 31 was up 15 percent year on year to $34.7 million, 89 percent from subscriptions and services. Product revenue, which recently hovered around $12 million-$13 million, is expected to be flat from FY 2019 to 2020, while the company eyes near-term subscription revenue growth from business and residential. CEO Eric Stang said development plans are shifting to new premium services the company can enable through its office platform, and its partnership with Sprint, announced at CES, for a 4G wireless home phone that doesn’t require an internet connection will play a bigger role in the broader company portfolio over time. The company is expanding its Telo residential phone service into home security, and its $149 indoor/outdoor Smart Cam, launched at CES, has had a good "take rate" with additional services on Amazon, said Stang: “We always like it to be higher, but it's gotten off to a good start." Shares closed down 0.1 percent to $16.04.
The “potential effects” of the new California Consumer Privacy Act “are far-reaching” and may force Roku to modify its “data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expenses” to comply, said a 10-K SEC filing Friday. The CCPA (see 1812070054) was recently amended and may be amended again before it takes effect in January, said Roku. The legislation “places additional requirements on the handling of personal data,” it said. It gives residents “expanded rights to access and require deletion of their personal information, opt out of certain personal information sharing and receive detailed information about how their personal information is used,” said the company. It stipulates civil penalties for violations, plus “a private right of action for data breaches” that might raise Roku’s exposure to litigation, it noted: “We are continuing to assess the impact of the CCPA and proposed amendments to the law on our business.”
Audio/video dealers need to compete with national accounts, retailers, e-tailers, security competitors and high-end integrators by connecting online with consumers, BrandSource/AVB CEO Jim Ristow told the ProSource buying group's meeting Saturday in Nashville. “You know you need to do digital,” Ristow said, saying 92 percent of customers are online looking for goods, services and integration services: “They need to find you.” AVB's program for ProSource members encompasses social media and websites, focusing on “dynamic content” and video. Video will be a major part of dealers’ websites in the future, said the executive, showing video content from Amazon's Zappos of a product expert explaining a shoe's details. Video product presentations connect with customers “in a completely different way” from the written word, he said. Product videos are “all around the internet,” but they're “almost nonexistent” among independent dealers, he said.
Despite recent “buzz” about virtues of recruiting more women for key tech jobs, females own 5 percent of the tech startups in Silicon Valley and earn 28 percent of the computer science degrees at U.S. universities, IRYStec Software co-founder-Chief Technology Officer Tara Akhavan told a Society for Information Display webinar Wednesday. Women employed in “computing roles” peaked at 36 percent in 1991, declining steadily since, said Akhavan, SID marketing vice chair. “We’re going backwards.” Employee diversity adds “a huge amount of value,” she said. “Any business that invests in diversity has seen in a few years the growth and return on investment.” Preregistrations for SID’s Display Week May 12-17 in San Jose are up 10 percent over this date for last year's event, she said. Montreal-based IRYStec specializes in perceptual display technology designed to make screens “smarter, healthier and more readable” in all light conditions, said Akhavan on a YouTube video shot at last year's Display Week in Los Angeles. President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order two years ago blocking citizens of six Muslim-majority countries from getting new U.S. visas hit Akhavan when she was denied travel from Canada to Los Angeles for Display Week 2017 because she held an Iranian passport (see 1705230045). Akhavan helps produce Display Week’s annual Women in Tech forum.
Energous’ prospects for generating meaningful revenue from deliverables for its wireless charging technology took another hit in Q4 due to customers’ decisions to extend review processes, said CEO Steve Rizzone on a Wednesday earnings call. Rizzone had referred on previous calls to a “large engineering services payment” in conjunction with delivery of the first iteration of a system Energous had been developing to spec for a "key strategic partner," but it couldn’t invoice for delivery due to the customer's decision to extend the review and acceptance cycle. “We have no guarantee that they will integrate this technology at all, even though the relationship continues to move forward,” Rizzone said. A second CE company planned a Q2 2019 product launch, which would have “triggered a meaningful order” in Q4 for manufacturing ramps that didn't occur. That customer is refining its specs to improve its product's user experience and competitive position, said Rizzone, saying Energous expects a Q2 chip order. The company announced Wednesday a direct securities offering of $25 million, less $1.7 million in expenses, to finance working capital and other general and administrative purposes. The company’s Q4 revenue was $56,000; net loss was $12.5 million, it said. Shares plunged 24 percent Wednesday at $6.21. Rizzone highlighted positive news -- availability of the Oasis-RC personal sound amplification product from Delight and vivo’s Mobile World Congress announcement (see 1902250053) it plans to incorporate Energous’ distance charging in a future smartphone. More negative news came from the regulatory front where approvals for wireless charging distance technology in Asia “are extending out.” Rizzone has expressed hope that FCC approval in December 2017 (see 1712270024) would be a model for regulators in Japan, Korea and China, but those countries chose to do their own studies along the same lines as the FCC approval process, he said Wednesday. At CES last month, Energous demonstrated its wireless charging technology in prototypes from Vuzix, Qubercomm, IDT, Austar and Deutsche Telekom.
Amazon edged out Google in 2018 smart speaker shipments by a percentage point, Canalys reported Monday. Total 2018 industry shipments reached 78 million units worldwide, up 125 percent from the year before, with Amazon shipping 24.2 million Echo devices and Google shipping 23.4 million units in the Home line. Apple didn’t place in the top five, which included China vendors Alibaba (8.9 million), Xiaomi (7.1 million) and Baidu (3.6 million). Other manufacturers shipped a total 10.8 million. Echo’s holiday season refresh, with focus on sound and aesthetics, boosted its revenue by 31 percent over the year-ago quarter, said the researcher. For 2019, Amazon is expected to switch gears and extend Alexa’s reach into the automotive market via developers and device vendors, analyst Jason Low forecast, saying Amazon needs to support third-party companies in the Alexa ecosystem or risk “waning commitment.” Google’s $149 Home Hub smart display was a Q4 highlight with 2.2 million shipments, helping Google become the second largest smart display vendor for the year. Smart display shipments totaled 6.4 million units in 2018, for an 8.3 percent share of the smart speaker category. Estimating 80 percent of the global smart speaker market comprises ISPs and software companies, Low said Samsung, Huawei and Apple “failed to capitalize” on the growth of smart assistants in the home and risk falling further behind as voice assistant leaders expand penetration in vehicles and offices.
Qualcomm touted its role in extended reality (XR), announcing Monday ecosystem support from OEMs, operators and platform providers for interactive augmented and virtual reality experiences connected to 5G smartphones using its Snapdragon 855 mobile platform. Benefits from 5G in XR include high data rates and low latency, it said. XR viewers can be optimized and commercially ready for the mobile industry this year, it said. The company will expand its HMD (head-mounted display) Accelerator Program (HAP) to include and help pre-validate components and performance between smartphones and XR viewers, it said. XR viewers will bring a point-of-sale bundling opportunity to OEMs and new experiences to customers as 5G uses emerge, Qualcomm said. Later this year, Qualcomm and its HAP collaborators plan to release a viewer performance and compatibility badge icon. It cited Acer’s Ojo HMD VR viewer with high-resolution displays and 6 degrees-of-freedom tracking and the nreal light AR glasses as designs with USB-C connectivity that can work with the platform. The nreal light AR glasses initially required a processing box tethered to a Snapdragon 845 processing box, it said. OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Black Shark are expected to have Snapdragon 855-based smartphones in 2019. The increased resolution, high bandwidth and streamlined form-factor of XR viewers connected to 5G handsets offer an “evolutionary step in immersive consumer devices,” said David Cole, CEO of immersive live sports and music provider NextVR.
Apple chip modem supplier Intel told Reuters Friday its 5G modem chip won’t appear in smartphones until next year. At Mobile World Congress, starting Monday in Barcelona, 5G phones will be announced or teased. Samsung announced plans to deliver a 5G phone in Q2 (see 1902200065). While Apple is Intel’s major customer for modem chips, the phone maker has reportedly had talks with chipmakers Samsung and MediaTek about 5G modem chips for iPhones to be released this year, and the company reportedly moved modem engineering into the division that makes its proprietary processor chips. Intel and Apple didn’t comment.
Some 46 Kenmore smart appliances are certified as Works with Alexa, Sears said Thursday. Consumers can ask Alexa for information such as remaining time on a dryer cycle, status of a washer, whether a dishwasher needs a rinse aid or a refrigerator’s temperature, it said. Kenmore recently announced Kenmore smart refrigerator customers can have water and air filters reordered automatically via Amazon Dash when they need replacement.