Mastercard began tokens for transactions in 12 countries including the U.S., working with companies including Amazon. This replaces a physical credit card number and payment information is unique to each transaction and can be used only by the merchant that requested it, the card issuer said Wednesday. More consumers are saving and managing payment card details across websites, it said: Merchants worldwide use its tokenization technology. A May Mastercard report said more than $53 billion in incremental spending occurred on e-commerce in the U.S. vs. what's typical, due to the pandemic. Consumers “adapted to a new reality,” moving to the internet to acquire goods and services, said the report. The company didn't respond to questions on the token rollout.
The U.S. imported more laptops and tablets in April than in any previous April in the history of the category, showed Census Bureau data we accessed Monday through the International Trade Commission. There was a surge in demand for work-from-home and remote-learning tools. U.S. importers sourced 9.36 million laptops and tablets in April, a 75% sequential increase and up 28% from April 2019. The average device was worth $459.01. April also was a record-high month for China, which shipped 8.7 million devices here and was 93% of all laptop and tablet imports to the U.S.
Zoom won’t allow requests from the Chinese government to affect users outside mainland China, the company said Thursday. It responded to House Republicans’ criticism about coordination with Chinese authorities for removing certain users and activity (see 2006110074). The company acknowledged removing host accounts at the Chinese government’s request due to behavior violating Chinese law. Three accounts have been reinstated, the company said: The videoconferencing platform is developing technology to remove or block participants based on geographical location, allowing it to comply with local laws not at the expense of international users.
Brazil added 12 items to its list of IT and telecom goods subject to duty-free treatment, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported. Duty-free treatment is through 2021, the group said Tuesday. Brazil's Washington embassy didn't comment Thursday.
Israel-based Tower Semiconductor licensed Invensas ZiBond and DBI 3D semiconductor interconnect technologies, said Tower and Invensas parent Xperi Wednesday. The license supports manufacturing of time of flight and advanced sensors for CE, machine vision, autonomous vehicles and smart devices. Tower will also explore the use of Invensas 3D integration technologies for memories and micro-electromechanical system devices. Xperi and TiVo completed their merger June 1 and will operate under Xperi (see personals section, June 9).
Despite stabilization in other market indicators over the past month -- and many countries’ moves into a “gradual recovery phase” from the COVID-19 pandemic -- information technology buyers’ economic confidence levels declined in the last week of May, said IDC Friday. Confidence levels are especially weak in the U.S., where they have continued to trend down since the crisis began, IDC said. U.S. firms are “a little more confident about the overall economy than two weeks ago, but conversely less confident about their own IT budgets for the year as a whole,” said the research firm. Significant spending declines are predicted for traditional technologies including PCs, peripherals, software applications and project-oriented IT services.
Global smartphone shipments are expected to decline 11.9% this year to 1.2 billion, reported IDC Wednesday. It follows the largest year-over-year Q1 decline in the product's history, it said. “Smartphone shipments are now expected to decline 18.2% in 2020's first half of the year as the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect consumer spending.” IDC doesn’t expect the global market to return to unit growth until after Q1 2021.
The International Trade Commission vote was 5-0 to open a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Sharp’s patent infringement allegations against Vizio (see 2005210041), said a voting sheet (login required) dated May 20 and posted Tuesday in docket 337-TA-1201. Sharp seeks limited exclusion and cease and desist orders banning import of Vizio TVs that allegedly infringe five Sharp LCD patents. Sharp’s complaint also targets Vizio’s panel supplier, Xianyang CaiHong Optoelectronics Technology, and TPV, its TV assembler. Vizio and its suppliers didn't comment but face a June 10 ITC deadline to reply to Sharp's complaint and the initiation of the Section 337 investigation.
Sen. Tom Cotton R-Ark., is among those set to testify Tuesday before the U.K. Parliament’s Defense Select Committee on 5G security. Cotton said Monday his testimony, which he will do via webcam, will focus on Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei. Cotton was one of several lawmakers who in January criticized the U.K.’s National Security Council to allow equipment from Huawei on “non-core” parts of the country’s communications infrastructure but bar it from “sensitive locations” like military bases (see 2001280074). Recent media reports claim the U.K. government may be planning to reverse course. Also testifying will be 5G Action Now Chairman Mike Rogers and the Hudson Institute's Robert Spalding, the Defense Committee said. The hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
A chip company that supplies carriers and others expects 5G and bandwidth demand to keep increasing post-pandemic, its CEO said. Marvell expects the demand for bandwidth “to continue to grow stronger,” said CEO Matt Murphy on a Thursday investor call. “Major cloud and service providers are facing unprecedented demand for their services as a result of so many people working from home and are scrambling to add capacity to their networks. 5G has become a strategic priority for many nations.” Quarterly sales rose about 5% to $693.6 million from the year-ago period. That's about $14 million above the midpoint of its March 4 guidance, despite COVID-19's “massive disruption,” Murphy said. Q1 ended May 2. “The impact of COVID-19 turned out to be greater than expected in our storage business and lower than expected in our networking business,” he said. Marvell experienced stronger than expected demand from its data center and 5G infrastructure “end markets,” he said. The company just started shipping 5G products to Samsung. “We are still at the very beginning of the industry transition from 4G to 5G,” Murphy noted. His company's stock closed up 8.8% Friday at $32.62.