Amazon removed quantity limits suppliers can send to its fulfillment centers, put in place to focus on essential goods for the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesperson emailed Wednesday. The company is adhering to “extensive health and safety measures” to protect fulfillment center workers and is “improving delivery speeds across our store,” he said. Prime 1- and 2-Day shipping remains elusive, we found. Responding to our question on when those services would resume, the spokesperson said many items are available for 1- and 2-Day Prime shipping. Our Wednesday search for a power bank brought up Saturday and Sunday as the earliest delivery days for all units. An Anker PowerCore 20100mAh charger showed a Saturday delivery date with a “details” button next to it. The disclaimer said Amazon offers guaranteed delivery on certain products and that if a delivery attempt isn't made by that date, it will refund shipping fees. An additional note said delivery capability reflects "the moment the page was opened” and that the delivery date “may become unavailable within that time frame, prior to completing your order, due to changes in inventory or delivery capacity.” In the time it took us to type out the disclaimer, the date changed to Sunday when we placed it in our shopping cart, making it four-day shipping. The Anker website showed a similar product with three-to-five day free shipping. Only one Echo speaker at Amazon showed 1-Day free Prime delivery; others were Sunday and Monday. When we put the Echo in our shopping cart, the delivery date defaulted to one week out; we had an option to change it to Thursday.
Logitech’s products “have never been more relevant,” said CEO Bracken Darrell on a Tuesday call, citing a 60% year-on-year jump in its video collaboration business for fiscal Q4 to $111 million. Shares hit a 52-week high, closing 1.5% higher Tuesday at $51.86. Videoconferencing, working remotely, creating and streaming content, and gaming are long-term trends driving business, Darrell said: “The pandemic hasn’t changed these trends: it has accelerated them.” Logitech products are playing a “small but essential role” in helping people stay connected, Darrell said, citing co-workers collaborating from home, remote teaching and kids’ online gaming ‘in lieu of physical contact.” Those trends will drive long-term growth in the company’s three largest businesses: gaming, PC peripherals and video collaboration, he said. Darrell downplayed the possibility that work-at-home trends requiring webcams and PC gear that hit dramatically in March are one-time spikes. He said long-term trends were already happening in gaming and video collaboration, and he expects them to continue. “If you do the math on how many people are now working from home -- and how many will continue to work from home on some level … it’s really a small fraction" of people that have bought a Logitech webcam, mouse or keyboard, he said. Revenue in the quarter ended March 31 rose about 14% to $709 million, with a 36% gain in tablet business to $31.9 million, 32% gain in webcams ($40.1 million), 12% rise in keyboards ($147 million) and 8% increase in gaming devices ($149 million). It had declines in smart home (28%), mobile speakers (7%) and other categories (59%). Darrell called Logitech’s supply chain “healthy” after it came to a "complete standstill" for three weeks in January and February: It’s back at “full throttle.” Revenue outlook for FY 2021 is mid-single-digit sales growth, Darrell said.
Vizio and its suppliers TPV and Xianyang CaiHong Optoelectronics wrongly used the COVID-19 pandemic to argue against an International Trade Commission import ban on LCD displays (see 2005090002), said Sharp Electronics in rebuttal comments posted Monday in docket 337-3451. Sharp’s April 21 complaint seeks cease and desist and limited exclusion orders against displays from the three companies for allegedly infringing five Sharp LCD patents. The products are large TV panels “used primarily for entertainment,” a “small subset” of the LCD screens the public is using for telework and distance learning under coronavirus stay-at-home restrictions, said Sharp. The COVID-19 argument against an import ban is based on “past facts” that are “subject to change,” it said. “The relevant facts are those that exist when the remedial orders issue.” Opponents of an import ban during the “remedy phase” of a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Sharp’s allegations “can submit evidence and comments,” and the ITC “can determine whether remedial orders harm the public interest,” it said.
The U.K.’s COVID-19 lockdown is sending viewers flocking to BBC iPlayer streaming in “record numbers,” said the broadcaster Tuesday. Sunday was the biggest day in the history of the service with 22.1 million streaming “requests,” it said. BBC recorded 927 million requests since the lockdown started March 23, a 67% increase from the same seven-week period in 2019. April was BBC iPlayer’s biggest-ever month with 564 million requests. Q1 had a record-high 1.4 billion requests, up 34% from the 2019 quarter.
Arlo withdrew full-year revenue guidance, with CEO Matt McRae citing “considerable disruption and uncertainty across its distribution channels” due to the coronavirus pandemic. “As channels return to a more normal operational footprint and inventory model, we expect this destocking to reverse in future quarters” and shipments to improve, McRae said on the Q1 call Monday. The company is pinning hopes on a shift in its services business: Subscription conversion rates from the legacy business model were around 5%; early data for its new subscription model is about 50%. The company expects a “substantially lower churn rate,” said the executive. The jump in subscription attach rates will “transform the business as Arlo continues to end-of-life legacy products that include free storage and introduces new products that incorporate the new business model.” Q1 revenue grew 13% year on year to $65.5 million, said the company. Service revenue grew 31% to $14.7 million, paid account growth grew 57% and Arlo added 25,000 paid subscribers in the quarter. The company partnered with Kartchner Homes to integrate its video doorbell into homes built over the next 12 months, including a free three-month trial, said McRae. It introduced a wireless floodlight during the quarter with built-in 2K HDR video and two-way audio. Q2 revenue guidance is $50 million-$60 million; Q2 revenue in 2019 was $83.6 million. Shares closed down 16% to $2.31.
Retail landlord Simon Property Group reopened 77 locations through Friday and expects to have half its U.S. “portfolio” back open within the week, said CEO David Simon on a Q1 call Monday. The company owns the real estate for about 200 U.S. retail locations, half of them malls. “Shopper response to our reopenings has been positive, and sales of many tenants have been better than their initial expectations,” said Simon. The retail industry is confronting a “very chaotic” hodgepodge of reopening policies across the country, “waiting for governors to order real actions, some doing it, some not doing it, some deferring it to municipalities,” he said. Retailers are “ready to open and compete, with the broad array of options that the consumer has,” he said. In some U.S. regions, curbside shopping is “all that you can do,” said Simon. “We’re there to help the retailer if they need our help, but in a lot of cases, they already have their own protocols.”
Automotive and tech groups should detail any plans for assisting in COVID-19 recovery, House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., wrote Tuesday. They signed a letter to CTA, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, the National Automobile Dealers Association and the Chamber Technology Engagement Center. They cited “new innovations” like “use of automated driving systems to transport COVID-19 tests between a testing site and laboratory and ride-hailing vehicles to transport essential goods.” They warned against the threat of China leading innovation.
ON Semiconductor Q1 revenue fell 8% to $1.3 billion year on year and 9% sequentially, it said Monday, citing significant impact from the slowdown in global macroeconomic activity, supply constraints and “underutilization” due to coronavirus-related government shutdowns. Citing the need to take “aggressive, substantial and immediate measures" to meet gross margin targets, CEO Keith Jackson said on an earnings call the company is still looking to sell its automotive-qualified 6-inch fab in Belgium. The company took “restructuring actions” to cut expenses by $25 million annually, he said. ON saw a “modest” improvement in order rates in Q1, and improvement has continued in Q2, driven by “improving macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions and utilization of supply chain inventories.” Data from China shows “resilient manufacturing activity” that has been “especially encouraging.” Inventory levels are in line with the current demand outlook, said the executive, adding the company is “fully aware of risks” associated with the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Shares closed 8.5% lower Monday at $15.66.
COVID-19 lockdowns, first in China, then California, forced professional audio supplier Millennia Music & Media Systems to delay introducing its high-dynamic range audio technology by about six months to early January, emailed founder John La Grou Sunday. His application for the HDR-A trademark (see 1909150001) sailed through the Patent and Trademark Office in just over seven months, landing a registration certificate April 7. La Grou won’t discuss HDR-A until its formal introduction because he regards it as “stealth technology,” he said. Millennia, based in Diamond Springs, California, has been in lockdown since mid-March, scheduled to reopen Monday, said La Grou. His county’s shelter-in-place order expired Friday for “stage 2" nonessential manufacturing businesses like Millennia, “but getting everyone back to work won't happen until the 18th,” he said. “Sales are currently down around 20-30%.” His company got a Paycheck Protection Program loan under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, “but will only use about 1/2 of it, the other half will be returned to Treasury,” he said. “It's a timing issue.” A PPP loan converts to a grant after eight weeks if the funds are used toward payroll to bring furloughed employees back to work. The “8-wk shelf life is from date of receipt, NOT the date people return to work,” said La Grou. A “bureaucratic oversight” by the Small Business Administration, he said. “Long term nobody knows” when sales will recover, he said. “We're in the entertainment business (shows, studios, live events, etc.), which are all hit hard by CV19, so we may be in for a long slow period.”
The Audio Engineering Society has raised more than $159,000 in COVID-19 funding toward its June 1 goal of $500,000, said the society Friday. It launched the appeal for funding April 23 to sustain the organization through the crisis after the pandemic forced cancellation of at least two events from which it draws its “traditional cashflow” (see 2004230055). More than 170 individuals have donated money, and speaker maker Genelec committed a percentage of the proceeds from its 2020 sales, said AES.