Respondents to a mid-August Cowen continue to expect prolonged disruption due to COVID-19, averaging eight months, but consumer spending intention remains strong. Some 80% expect to spend the same or more in the upcoming month versus 66% in mid-April, the survey found. Areas where they expect to increase spending include groceries (58%), personal care products (27%), cable/internet/phone (19%), entertainment services (18%) and electronics (11%).
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the value of traditional landline voice calls, said Parks Associates Wednesday, saying voice and video calls tripled during the pandemic. Some 30% of U.S. broadband households reported one remote worker, and 22% reported another adult was working remotely in the household, it said, contributing to recorded increases in voice and video calls reported by Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. The combination of shelter-in-place, work-from-home and other “from home” lifestyles “led many consumers to rediscover the value in voice," said analyst Brad Russell, causing many mobile networks to struggle to keep up with the increased usage. “A renewed concern for the elderly, vulnerable, and socially isolated will drive appreciation of technologies that keep loved ones connected, cared for, and safe,” Russell said, citing telemedicine, remote patient monitoring and independent living solutions requiring fixed-line calling. The fixed telephone line is still an important lifeline for the elderly, rural residents and lower income households, Parks said.
Dolby “navigated through the worst" of supply chain interruptions from COVID-19-related factory shutdowns and will see “volumes ramp into the Holiday season,” wrote Colliers analyst Steven Frankel in a Wednesday investor note. The Dolby ecosystem continues to expand with high-profile content, Frankel said, citing the Disney+ Hamilton release in July, a new streaming partner in India and Xiaomi’s first TV with Dolby Atmos and Vision. Dolby.IO, the company’s effort to move its technologies to applications, was adopted by SoundCloud for creating high-quality music tracks and developers in telehealth and e-learning, so it could substantially expand the company’s business, he said. TCL, which supports Atmos and Vision in its TVs, had a 32% year-on-year boost in TV sales last quarter to 5.81 million sets, becoming the No. 2 brand globally, he said. Dolby will be part of Colliers’ Sept. 10 investor conference.
Short-form video tech firm Zigazoo introduced a remote-learning app through the App Store and Google Play called Classrooms that teachers helped design, said the startup Wednesday. The app enables teachers to assign classes one of Zigazoo's hundreds of projects, or build their own, “then host classroom interaction with and between students by sharing short-form videos in their closed communities,” it said. "Parents are telling me their kids are miserable on long Zoom calls and teachers are telling me that there is no humane way to do their old classroom model on a conference call,” said CEO Zak Ringelstein. Zigazoo is positioning Classrooms as “tailor-made for the remote learning world, giving teachers and students from all backgrounds the projects and environment they need to thrive," he said.
More than a fifth (21%) of U.S. homes canvassed Aug. 21-23 reported buying headphones or earbuds in the previous week, said CTA’s biweekly COVID-19 pandemic tech use and purchase tracker Wednesday. That was up from 19% in the previous research “wave,” and 18% two waves earlier. TV purchases grew to 15% of homes from 13% previously, while 18% bought smartphones, down from 20%. More than half (52%) reported using a streaming video service, down slightly from the 55% use rate in recent weeks, though streaming has stayed consistently above 50% throughout the pandemic. Online music streaming remains consistently popular among about a third of U.S. homes, said CTA.
North Carolina would spend $50 million on emergency broadband grants using federal COVID-19 funding, under a proposed budget revealed Wednesday by Gov. Roy Cooper (D). Kentucky will spend $8 million in federal coronavirus aid to reduce monthly internet costs for low-income parents of K-12 students, Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman (D) said Tuesday. Kentucky will ask ISPs to respond by Sept. 15 to a request for proposals to provide high-speed internet for up to $10 monthly for the next two to three school years, with federal Lifeline to cover some longer-term costs. Lack of internet access “disproportionately affects communities of color and Kentuckians who live in poverty,” Coleman said. In Mississippi, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann (R) and Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D) tweeted support Wednesday for their state’s $75 million COVID-19 broadband bill (see 2008250003) that awaits the governor's signature by Monday. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) didn’t comment Wednesday.
COVID-19's work-from-home “transition” is creating challenges for the cybersecurity industry “around hardware,” and “we expect this trend to continue,” said Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora on a fiscal Q4 investor call Monday. “When customers are not in their office, it's very hard for hardware to be delivered,” he said. “Hardware is going to continue to be a tough business in the next 12 months.” Palo Alto has been shifting customers to “software-delivered security,” he said, “and we plan to continue to do so.” It expects most future growth to come from software and services, he said. Prisma Access, Palo Alto’s cloud-based security infrastructure platform has been through “an amazing journey” this year, he said. That platform is “a powerful security tool as our customers go through a network transformation and create robust solutions for work from home for the long term,” he said. In Q4 ended July 31, “we saw very strong conversion of Prisma Access trials that were launched in response to COVID and work from home,” he said.
Qualcomm Technologies’ “accelerator program,” formed in June with broad tech industry support to help small businesses convert to a post-pandemic “mobile-first work environment” (see 2006110040), picked 33 companies, each to receive $25,000 worth of connected devices and services to suit their individual needs, said the chipmaker Monday. Qualcomm got more than 375 applications to the program, and the 33 businesses it picked “span the healthcare, education, crisis response, arts, environmental services, and other industries,” it said. Most identified as women-, minority- or veteran-owned, it said.
It’s “hard to quantify” the “market chatter” about Chromebook shortages and their impact on sales, as unprecedented consumer demand for connectivity tools shows no signs of abating during the pandemic, emailed NPD Vice President-Technology Stephen Baker Friday. “The fact is that sales results at these levels have been going on for weeks and weeks,” said Baker. “There may be insufficient product available, and current volumes could be higher than what we are doing now with more inventory,” he said. Yet Chromebook unit sales continue through the roof, rising the first three weeks of August “more than 2x higher than they were last year,” and up more than 90% since April from the same 2019 period, he said. A Google spokesperson declined comment Sunday about Chromebook shortages. The COVID-19 pandemic is putting “significant pressure on the supply chain as schools nationwide place orders to try and support remote learning resulting in Chromebook backlogs,” Google told (login required) the International Trade Commission last month, opposing Nokia's petitioned ban on Lenovo Chromebooks. NPD is finding consumer laptop sales “a little more volatile” during the back-to-school buying frenzy compared with the start of lockdown mandates in March, Ben Arnold, executive director-industry analyst-consumer electronics, told an NPD webinar last week. “We’ve seen one or two weeks where sales are up 40 or 50% for notebook PCs, and a couple of weeks where sales have been slightly negative,” said Arnold. “What we’re seeing on that end is some struggle to get product.” Amid the “historic” consumer demand for connectivity tools, “it’s difficult to get PCs right now, for sure,” he said. About three-quarters of the 46 Chromebook models BestBuy.com advertised for sale when we checked Monday were sold out.
The COVID-19 pandemic has nearly two-thirds of Americans trading in public transit for personal vehicles and more than a third believing commuter life has “changed forever” because they plan on teleworking permanently, a Cars.com survey found. The website canvassed nearly 3,100 respondents Aug. 13-14, finding 43% “lack faith” in fellow subway and bus passengers to wear masks and follow other health and safety protocols, it said. More than one in five bought a car in the past six months, and 57% of those said the pandemic made them do so. Nearly half of those canvassed think it will be at least three months before mass transit ridership returns to pre-COVID-19 levels, while 7% said they can’t foresee ever getting on a subway or bus again. Two-thirds of Americans are saving 30 minutes or more daily on their commute, and 26% are saving more than an hour a day.