Supply constraints hit iPhones hard in the quarter that ended June 26, said Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. CEO Tim Cook called such chip and other shortages an industry problem. For the iPhone, demand “has been so great and so beyond our own expectation that it's difficult to get the entire set of parts within the lead times that we try to get,” he said Tuesday: Supply constraints have largely been on legacy semiconductor nodes. “We're paying more for freight than I would like to pay, but component costs continue in the aggregate to decline,” he said. “We'll do everything we can to mitigate whatever set of circumstances we're dealt.” IPhone sales in Q3 jumped 50% from the year-ago quarter to $39.5 billion. Such “sales remained extremely strong across all regions” and exceeded Canaccord's 35% estimate, Michael Walkley wrote investors Wednesday. “Apple is well-positioned to continue to benefit from the 5G upgrade cycle,” the analyst wrote. He anticipates “strong overall growth trends as 5G smartphones ramp.”
The Information Technology Industry Council hailed the reprieve for U.S. importers from the threat of tariffs on goods from Vietnam. “ITI welcomes the U.S. government’s bilateral engagement -- rather than consideration of tariffs that harm U.S. competitiveness and jobs -- to address concerns with Vietnam’s currency valuation practices,” emailed Senior Policy Director Sam Rizzo Monday. The agreement the U.S. Treasury reached last week with the State Bank of Vietnam to address U.S. allegations that Hanoi was devaluing the dong against the dollar was a “satisfactory resolution” of the investigation launched in October, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Friday. Vietnam plays a large and growing role in the consumer tech supply chain.
A Hollywood Hills, California, electrical engineer was sentenced Thursday to 63 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme to illegally export chips with military uses to China, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Export Administration Regulations, said DOJ. Yi-Chi Shih, 66, was convicted July 2 and ordered to pay the IRS $362,698 in restitution for lying to the agency about his foreign assets, and also was fined $300,000. Shih defrauded a U.S. manufacturer of high-power broadband chips to gain access to the company’s confidential and proprietary business information, then used an accomplice posing as a domestic customer to buy the chips for U.S. use, said DOJ. “Shih concealed his true intent to export.” Attempts to reach Shih’s lawyers for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
TrendForce trimmed its 2021 smartphone production forecast 5 million units to 1.35 billion, citing the “intensifying COVID-19 pandemic in India and Vietnam in April and May.” Production could fall further in the second half “since the pandemic is showing no signs of an impending slowdown in Southeast Asia,” the industry researcher said: Samsung has been relocating smartphone production to Vietnam since 2009. The OEM didn’t comment Wednesday.
The push for Olympics eyeballs, with opening ceremonies Friday, has Hulu pitching its virtual MVPD service. Like Roku, which added an Olympics hub and a dedicated tab to its homepage Tuesday (see 2107200042), Hulu allows personalizing events by sport, it emailed Wednesday. Hulu promoted watching the Tokyo Games “live on the networks of NBCUniversal.”
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr again backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez (R) and Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation in urging President Joe Biden to enable U.S. businesses to provide internet service to Cubans (see 2107150053). “Increasingly, dictators around the world are shutting down Internet connections when people yearning for freedom stand up to those oppressive regimes” and “we are seeing that right now in Cuba,” Carr said Friday. He said he stands with Florida Republicans “to call on the Biden Administration to put its full support behind efforts to end this Internet blockade. American enterprises have the technology capability to beam Internet into Cuba, and we must not lose any time in authorizing and clearing the way for the deployment.”
Kopin signed a multiyear agreement with a top Japanese electronics company to develop “superbright” full-color LED microdisplays on silicon for augmented- and virtual-reality headsets, it said Thursday. Kopin didn’t name the partner that produces “advanced consumer products.” Kopin will contribute proprietary backplane silicon wafers and the partner will develop bonding and color conversion processes, it said. They expect to be able to demo prototypes within two years,
Xiaomi became No. 2 global smartphone vendor for the first time in Q2, reported Canalys Thursday. The Chinese phone maker had 17% share on 83% shipment growth, behind market leader Samsung, which grew shipments 15% for 19% share. Apple’s share was 14% on 1% unit growth, followed by Oppo and vivo with 10% share each.
Global IT spending will grow 8.6% this year to $4.21 trillion, after 0.9% growth in 2020, reported Gartner Wednesday. Communications services will be the biggest chunk at $1.44 trillion, followed by IT services ($1.18 trillion) and devices ($784 billion). “Technology spending is entering a new build budget phase,” said analyst John-David Lovelock. “This means building technologies and services that don’t yet exist.” While many companies expect revenue declines post-pandemic, “IT spending is accelerating ahead of revenue expectations,” said Gartner.
Public-private partnerships will help drive mobility-as-a-service ride-hailing deployments to “displace” more than 2.2 billion “private car journeys” globally by 2025, from 471 million trips displaced this year, reported Juniper Research Monday. “As the pandemic wanes, MaaS solution providers should view the increasing demand for travel as an opportunity to disrupt established transport provision ecosystems by demonstrating the cost-effectiveness and efficiencies of their platforms.” It cautioned that the need for vendors to rely on high penetration of mobile devices and internet connectivity to fully exploit MaaS offerings “will limit adoption to developed regions.” Juniper forecasts that more than 70% of the displaced private car journeys will occur in Europe and the Far East by 2025.