Global smartphone sell-through to end users “stalled” in Q4, rising just 0.1 percent to 408.4 million units, reported Gartner Thursday. Apple recorded its worst quarterly decline since Q1 2016, it said. IPhone sales fell 11.8 percent to 64.5 million units, it said. Apple saw iPhone demand weaken in most regions, except North America; the biggest decline was in China, where iPhone’s market share dropped to 8.8 percent in Q4 from 14.6 percent in year-earlier quarter, it said. The weak iPhone demand prompted Apple CEO Tim Cook to issue his rare earnings warning early January, sending shares plummeting to a 52-week low (see 1901030036).
Royole, which launched the foldable phone market last fall, looked to get a bit of the spotlight Thursday following Samsung’s splashy Fold announcement. Royole said it will demonstrate for the first time at Mobile World Congress next week its “fully flexible displays” including it wearable FlexPai smartphone integrated in a top hat and shirt. It will also show the RoWrite smart writing pad. Royole sensors have a bending radius of 1-3 mm and are operational after 200,000 bends, the company said. Samsung said Wednesday its device will fold at least 200,000 times.
A quarter of U.S broadband homes intend to buy a smart door lock in the next 12 months, Parks Associates blogged Thursday. Over the next several years, the market is expected to expand into early mass-market households with moderate incomes and smaller homes, it said. The systems will integrate with smart speakers, with voice control helping to improve the user experience, said analyst Denise Ernst. Builders are adding built-in smart home technology in their models, said Ernst, saying partnerships with homebuilders and real estate developers will have “significant implications in broadening the user base.” Some 35 percent of those surveyed think smart door locks are affordable, she said.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton tapped Alarm.com for its Home Is Connected smart home device package and long-term post-sale support, said the tech company Wednesday. Alarm.com’s Home Is Connected solution -- an app, lights, locks, doorbell camera and thermostat -- will be installed in every new home by the builder and includes home automation and voice control. Professionally monitored security will be available as an upgrade using existing hardware, it said. Alarm.com’s service provider partners will configure locks, thermostats and lighting hardware after installation, add new devices of the owners' choice and support homes’ technology. Shawn Barry, Alarm.com’s vice president-strategic sales, cited growing homebuyers enthusiasm for smart home technology and said the company’s program offers builders a way to offer smart home technology quickly with minimum risk. For service providers, Alarm.com’s Builder Program offers a new opportunity for growth and revenue generation at scale, it said. As part of the program, Alarm.com offers model home kits, hardware and an automation-only service plan to further facilitate partnerships.
DTS and CJ 4DPlex announced a strategic alliance to bring DTS:X immersive audio technology to 270-degree ScreenX theaters worldwide, they said Wednesday. The companies will begin to outfit ScreenX theaters this year and seek more opportunities for collaboration, said Geir Skaaden, DTS chief products and services officer.
Qualcomm announced the first development kit for mesh Wi-Fi networks, qualified by Amazon, to integrate Amazon Alexa Voice Service. The kit gives manufacturers the building blocks to create mesh Wi-Fi systems with Alexa built-in quickly and cost effectively, so they can offer a voice control feature for connected devices, Qualcomm said Wednesday. The kit integrates Alexa with Meeami Technologies’ ClearVoice far-field voice enhancement software that’s said to allow voice commands to be understood from distances of several meters under noisy conditions. Qualcomm’s mesh networking platform, launched in 2017, added support for advanced voice services last year, and a “handful of device makers are starting to deliver on that promise,” blogged spokesperson Megan Wenholz Wednesday. The rise in popularity of digital assistants makes it “natural to converge all that functionality into one device,” she said of Alexa integration. A Qualcomm spokeswoman told us the company is supporting multiple voice assistant offerings across its various platforms and expects to continue to provide other platform-level ones, declining to comment on specific plans.
TiVo will be Sky Mexico’s primary metadata provider for its next-generation platform, TiVo said Wednesday. The TiVo platform will improve search and recommendations, it said. Sky Mexico previously had relied on multiple vendors for metadata.
The Seamless Air Alliance, working toward the next generation of in-flight connectivity, announced five new members ahead of Mobile World Congress, it said Wednesday. Adaptive Channel, Etihad Airways, GlobalReach Technology, Safran and SitaOnAir joined the organization, announced at MWC 2018, which also includes Airbus, Delta Air Lines, Air France-KLM, OneWeb, Sprint, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Nokia and Panasonic. The alliance has set up a research laboratory and established three working groups writing specifications for technology, requirements and operations, it said. The alliance’s mission is to enable air travelers “to use their own devices to automatically connect to the Internet with no complicated login process nor paywall to scramble over,” it said. It plans to demonstrate the technology this year.
Cirrus Logic announced Tuesday a smart power amplifier it said will improve the audio listening experience for mono and stereo applications on mobile devices, while conserving battery life. The CS35L41 supports stereo audio in smartphones and portable devices and is said to boost audio clarity and loudness with advanced power management. It’s half the size of other digital signal processing amps, said the company.
The top smartwatch vendors will see their collective 58 percent market share in 2018 shrink to 47 percent by 2023, Juniper Research reported Tuesday, with Garmin, Huami and Huawei poised to gain ground. Apple is expected to continue to lead the segment in shipments over the next four years, but Huawei will grow faster, at a 20 percent compound annual growth rate. Increased focus on healthcare integration will lead to overall shipment growth over the forecast period, with Apple and Withings among the leaders in the category, followed by Fitbit and Garmin. Smaller players will grow via niche market targeting, use cases or price points, while others deliver premium devices combining fitness, outdoor activity and health features, it said. China shipped 24 million smartwatches last year vs. 19.5 million by North America companies, and it’s expected to continue to widen the gap with lower priced devices. Adoption of hybrid smartwatches, which comprised 22 percent of last year's smartwatch shipments, will be slower than expected as smaller players focus on digital offering apps, connectivity and sensors.