Pandora launched exclusive hosted playlists by popular TikTok creators Monday that will take listeners through their favorite songs with commentary about the selections, said SiriusXM Monday. The TikTok Tastemakers series kicks off with Bella Poarch, Christian Shelton and Nick Tangorra; creators will promote the playlists on TikTok. The social networking service’s users will also have access to select re-airings of Pandora's original events series, Pandora Live, said SiriusXM. Pandora Live Powered by Women, featuring Gwen Stefani and Jazmine Sullivan, recently re-aired on TikTok, and more events will be announced through the year. In addition, SiriusXM will launch TikTok Radio this summer with content from TikTok creators, tastemakers and DJs. It’s designed to be a radio version of the platform’s For You page, SiriusXM said. TikTok Radio will be available in vehicles and as a streaming channel on the SiriusXM app, desktop and connected devices, it said.
Amazon is rolling Prime Now into the Amazon app for a more “seamless” shopping experience, blogged Vice President-Grocery Stephenie Landry Friday. The Amazon shopping app also wraps in Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods and local stores, she said. The company will sunset the Prime Now website and app at year-end. Consumers can use the Amazon app for shopping, tracking orders and contacting customer service, she said.
NCTA noted fears the chip shortage could slow broadband deployment. Federal policy on the shortage should be industry- and technology-neutral, NCTA blogged Thursday. It said government efforts to bolster this supply chain, if not "equitable," could strand the tens of billions of dollars being invested in broadband through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction and other actions. NCTA said the U.S. should invest more in R&D and chip manufacturing capacity, and it wants the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act fully funded.
Telesat and Brazil's TIM Brasil completed in-orbit 4G mobile data backhaul testing using Telesat's Phase 1 low earth orbit satellite, Telesat said Thursday. It said it achieved an average of 38 milliseconds of round-trip latency. Telesat said the testing demonstrates the ability of its forthcoming Lightspeed constellation to bring backhaul connectivity to underserved regions.
Though chipmaker QuickLogic ended Q1 with revenue that was “within the guidance range” of its February forecast, results for the quarter ended April 4 were “still held back due to ongoing COVID-related issues with certain customers and the broader capacity and supply chain issues in the semiconductor industry that have been echoed by many companies recently,” said CEO Brian Faith on a Tuesday earnings call. The company markets voice-enabled SoCs, including an “Amazon-qualified” reference design that lets OEMs develop faster-to-market Alexa smart products. Lead times in the semiconductor industry are “nearly triple” from a year ago, but “not to the extent as certain markets like automotive, where the supply chain is most constricted with some lead times exceeding a year,” said Faith. The CEO is optimistic “there is more of a movement from Washington to invest in onshore semiconductor development,” he said. “We’re talking about tens of billions of dollars.” There's “a lot of additional research” being funded through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for “a blend of semiconductor technology” that’s “more scalable” for U.S. chipmakers to “adopt,” he said. “Couple those” with that “we have all of this deep domain expertise in programmable logic that dates back three decades,” he said. “There is a really good opportunity.”
Top cable providers had a Q1 net loss of about 775,000 video subscribers, reported Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. Losses in Q1 2020 were 595,000. Comcast slid 491,000 to 19.3 million. AT&T Premium TV, Dish Network, Verizon Fios and Frontier shed 865,000, led by AT&T Premium. Top publicly reporting virtual MVPDs lost 255,000 vs. 210,000 exits a year ago. Overall, top U.S. pay-TV providers dropped 1.89 million vs. 1.95 million losses a year ago. The only pay-TV service to post Q1 gains was fuboTV, which added 42,550 to reach 590,430. Hulu shed 200,000 to 3.8 million, and Sling TV dropped 100,000 to 1.4 million. The top seven cable companies have 43.1 million of the 78.7 million pay-TV subscribers. Other traditional pay-TV services have 28.9 million and vMVPDs 6.7 million. Over the past year, top pay-TV providers lost 4.79 million vs. a loss of 5.12 million in the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.
The global slim modem market for smartphones and tablets grew 72% to $5.8 billion last year, led by Qualcomm with 56% share, said Strategy Analytics Wednesday. Qualcomm’s shipments grew 377% with the X55 5G slim modem in the iPhone 12 series and multiple Android devices. Intel shipments declined 23% on Apple’s shift to Qualcomm; the iPhone 11 series and SE 2020 drove Intel's shipments in the category. SA expects slim modem vendors, also including MediaTek and Samsung, to target more applications in cellular IoT, automotive, connected PCs, fixed wireless access and mobile broadband segments in the next few quarters.
Target shares hit a 52-week high at $218.50 Wednesday, after Q1 revenue jumped 23% to $24.2 billion from the year-ago period. Executives attributed gains to an omnichannel strategy, saying more than 95% of sales were fulfilled by stores. Digital comparable sales grew 50% and same-day services gained 90%, led by drive-up. Drive-up was 5% of digital sales two years ago, growing to 30%-plus in Q1, said CEO Brian Cornell. "Our stores and digital channels complement each other.” He said that "it’s not one vs. the other.” Shares closed up 6.1% at $219.01.
Viasat closed on its $222 million RigNet acquisition announced late last year (see 2012210006), the buyer said in an FCC International Bureau transfer of control notification Tuesday.
Top U.S. cable and wireline ISPs gained 1.02 million net broadband subscribers in Q1 vs. 1.17 million in the year-ago quarter, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Cable had 73.77 million of 107 million total subscribers, adding 935,000 subs. Telcos had 33.3 million customers, adding 85,000 vs. a net loss of 60,000. Losses among telco non-fiber subs were more than offset by over 400,000 fiber adds, bringing fiber-based telco broadband subs to about 14.6 million. Over the past year, there were about 4.7 million net broadband user adds vs. 2.8 million the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.