Massachusetts supported Colorado’s request to waive a restriction on using E-rate funding “off-campus.” Waiving the rule “would help mitigate the harms to our education system that the pandemic has caused” by allowing schools and libraries to extend broadband to unserved students who must learn remotely, the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable wrote Thursday in docket 13-184. The FCC also should waive parts of the program’s application procedures and competitive bidding requirements, the MDTC said.
Though the proportion of New Yorkers working in physical offices is in the “teens,” the “return to normalcy will be the order of the day in months, not in years,” said Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steven Roth on a Q3 call Wednesday. The company owns major commercial buildings in Manhattan, including One Penn Plaza next to Penn Station and Madison Square Garden and the adjacent Farley Building, where Facebook will lease 730,000 square feet in Q1, said Roth. “We are hearing from all our tenants that Zoom fatigue is real, productivity is low and CEOs want their employees back in the office,” he said. “That will take some time.” The landlord believes “there will be marginal work from home” and the office “will be the main place where work, creativity, growth and business is conducted.”
The Nebraska Public Service Commission extended through 2020 a $1 million broadband adoption program for low-income families during the pandemic (see 2004220035), it said Thursday: During the initial program, which ran mid-March to June, the commission OK’d $205,000 for about 2,000 consumers.
Revenue in Alibaba’s fiscal Q2, ended Sept. 30, jumped 30% from a year earlier on “deeper adoption” of the platform, accelerated by COVID-19 and “the rapid economic recovery in China,” said CEO Daniel Zhang on a Thursday investor call. “Digitalization is now universally recognized as a way forward in the post-pandemic world.” Global Shopping Festival, Alibaba’s equivalent of Amazon Prime Day, used to be a 24-hour event but this year was expanded into an 11-day marathon in two “shopping windows,” he said. The first ran Nov. 1-3; the second starts Nov. 11 and runs for eight days, he said. “We want to give consumers more time to browse and get the deal while easing pressure on the logistic infrastructure. This helps consumers receive their package sooner and enjoy a better shopping experience. Our merchants will also benefit from more exposure and selling opportunities.” On the festival's first day, more than 100 brands each surpassed sales of 100 million Chinese yuan ($15.1 million) “within the first 111 minutes,” and 357 new brands “on our platform became the top sellers in their respective subcategories,” he said.
A disappointing back-to-school season has been “elongated,” said ODP CEO Gerry Smith on a quarterly call Thursday (see Q3 materials here). The former Office Depot expects sales that didn’t materialize in the traditional BTS season to stretch into Q4 and Q1, Smith said, hoping the 53% of students currently learning from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic will go back to the classroom in coming months and need supplies. ODP had a 9% Q3 revenue drop to $2.5 billion, but e-commerce sales grew 20% as the company positioned itself as a source for home office and learn-from-home products. Shares closed up 18% at $24.90. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Scaglione highlighted adjacent categories -- cleaning and break room, personal protective equipment, technology, furniture, and copy and print -- which made up 47% of business solutions division revenue. Buy online, pick up in store fulfillment rose 82%, said Scaglione.
Apple told the FCC external testing of its hybridized emergency location vertical technology may not start until April because of the pandemic. CTIA indicated z-axis testing “can only begin once it is safe to do so and access to required testing locations becomes available,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-114.
Lenovo plans to introduce its first 5G Chromebook in the second half next year at the premium tier of the laptop space, said Chief Operating Officer Gianfranco Lanci on a fiscal Q2 call Tuesday. “I'm not afraid of any deterioration of the average selling price of Chromebook.” Competition in the Chromebook segment is limited to “four to five players,” he said. “I don't see additional players coming.” Lenovo had $10 to $20 "improvement" in Chromebook ASPs the past three quarters, he said. Chromebook demand for remote work and learning soared during the pandemic (see 2009110020). PCs and tablets “are now one device per person” in the “new normal” of COVID-19, said CEO Yuanqing Yang. Lenovo projects total PC market will grow by about 25 million units globally this year from 2019 and will “reach very close to 300 million units” in 2020, he said. The forecast is for 7% growth in 2021 PC demand, said Lanci. There’s a “dynamic shift” in PC demand that will “continue to create tailwinds for e-learning, work from home, play from home, cloud infrastructure and 5G,” said Chief Financial Officer Wai Ming: “We are optimistic that these long-term structural trends could enlarge the addressable market” for PCs and cloud infrastructure products, plus speed deployment of 5G services.
Q1 events are “certainly at risk” given state-level restrictions and the potential for venue closings due to COVID-19 government restrictions and venue takeovers, said Emerald interim CEO Brian Field. “We have already canceled some of our first quarter events and postponed others.” That includes the Kitchen + Bath Business Industry Show, scheduled virtually Feb. 9-11. Canceled trade shows cost CEDIA Expo owner Emerald Holding $68 million in Q3, said the company Monday, reporting an 89% revenue drop from the year-ago quarter to $8.5 million. It canceled “substantially all” trade events in the quarter due to COVID-19, it said. It canceled 94 in 2020 and hasn't staged an in-person one since mid-March, said Chief Financial Officer David Doft. The canceled gatherings generated about $236 million of 2019 revenue. Net loss narrowed to $15.3 million vs. $19.7 million. Emerald received an additional $39.8 million of payments in Q3 and $9.5 million so far in Q4 for insurance claims, with an additional $15.8 million recently approved and pending receipt, said Doft.
The movie theater industry is among “the very hardest hit” in this pandemic, AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said on a Q3 call Monday. AMC’s loss grew 1,553% from a year earlier to $905.8 million. Global theater lockdowns and average attendance hovering under 20% of capacity led to revenue falling 91% to $119.5 million. AMC made “great strides” in the quarter to “safely open our theaters where permitted,” said Aron, but attendance has been “minimal.” AMC's attendees numbered 10 million since reopenings, he said, “and we have not heard of even one instance where the coronavirus was spread.” Aron estimated 90% of AMC’s U.S. theaters are open in 44 of its 45 states: “Critical” markets of Los Angeles and New York remain closed through state mandates, he said. “In the past few weeks, and especially just in the last few days, we've been ordered to close our theaters for most of the month of November” outside the U.S., he noted. The “gravity of the situation” puts the theater industry in “almost a warlike position of resolve and determination,” said Aron. “We are fighting this virus with all of our smarts, and all of our minds. We are a resilient, resourceful and creative bunch in AMC and all of that energy is being deployed to fight the good fight.” The company is working feverishly to raise and preserve cash, the chief said. That's including the “groundbreaking" Universal pact July 28 enabling AMC to begin “participating” in a new premium VOD window through its AMC Theatres on Demand platform. Universal plans to release six movies theatrically, exclusively through AMC, in Q4, “something that no other studio that does not yet have a PVOD window established has been willing to try,” Aron said. AMC has “sufficient liquidity to last through to the beginning of 2021,” said Chief Financial Officer Sean Goodman. The stock closed 8.4% higher Tuesday at $2.34.
ABI Research expects COVID-19 will curb 8K TV consumer adoption through 2021, when 8K sets will still be only 1% of global flat-panel TV shipments. “There had been much anticipation of 8K TV market growth” amid broadcast content scheduled for the Tokyo Olympics, it reported Tuesday. The event’s postponement, plus the economic downturn, “has resulted in low 8K TV unit shipments in 2020,” it said: Though 8K TV price points declined in the past year, most are still expensive, and that will combine with lack of content to delay 8K TV adoption.