Altice completed the sale of 49.99% of its Lightpath fiber business "for an implied enterprise value of $3.2 billion" to a Morgan Stanley investment fund, it said Tuesday. The deal was announced in July (see 2007290007).
Dish Network procured access for its 5G “coast-to-coast” fiber needs by signing vendor agreements with Everstream, Segra, Uniti and Zayo, it said Monday. The agreements give Dish “fronthaul and backhaul support” to connect its 5G cloud-based open radio access network to sites covering about 60 million Americans, it said.
Wedbush maintained an “outperform” rating on gaming peripherals company Corsair, citing positive impact from new gamers, streamers and “casters,” along with existing users, in a Monday investor note. The pandemic has expanded growth “well beyond the normal level,” but the rise of new gamers widened the company’s user base long term, said analyst Michael Pachter. Corsair is “uniquely positioned" to drive its users to upgrade from entry-level peripherals given its high-end expertise, while leveraging its niche position to drive purchases among streamers and more serious gamers, he said.
The Wireless Speaker and Audio Association (WiSA) announced its first branded product, a home cinema transmitter that enables multichannel audio without the need for an AV receiver or Wi-Fi. The $179 SoundSend can be bundled or co-promoted with powered speakers or TVs, said the association Monday. The wireless transmitter allows consumers to create surround sound through a simple connection to a smart TV, a “massive market for SoundSend,” said WiSA President Tony Ostrom. WiSA partner Platin Audio will be the first association member to sell SoundSend through its Tuned by THX Monaco 5.1 audio system. The transmitter will be available through Amazon, Newegg and other retailers in early December. It transmits 24-bit/96 kHz audio for up to eight channels and decodes Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Atmos, WiSA said.
Vault Micro released updates for its CameraFi Live streaming app that allow e-commerce retailers to add real-time product information during a broadcast. They can add information such as item name, images, pricing and discounts, it said Monday. A live broadcast allows merchants to highlight items’ features and gives customers a way to ask questions and give feedback in real time, it said. Vault Micro CEO Seongil Kim said the company is working with live e-commerce platforms so nonprofessional users can start “live-streaming without difficulty.”
National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay will host a media call Tuesday to analyze the results of the five-day holiday shopping period from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday. NRF draws its data from Prosper Insights & Analytics, which also will participate on the call. NRF is forecasting 3.6%-5.2% year-on-year holiday sales increase for Nov.1-Dec. 31, including up to a 30% rise in online and other non-store sales (see 2011230045).
Nikon will stream its Nikon School Online photography classes free of charge through the end of the year, said the manufacturer. A wide range of classes are available, including an all-new class for creating memorable holiday photos and videos, it said. “The easy-to-follow classes are taught by world-renowned creatives and cover an array of topics.”
Best Buy, as part of a commitment to furthering economic and social justice in communities, has opened 30 Teen Tech Centers, with a goal of 100 by the end of 2025, said CEO Corie Barry on a Tuesday call (see also a report in the Nov. 25 issue). The centers help disadvantaged teens learn technology skills required for the modern economy, Barry said; the company hopes to serve more than 30,000 youths annually in five years. The company pledged to have one out of three non-hourly open corporate positions filled by someone who is Black, indigenous or a person of color, and one out of three non-hourly field roles filled by women, she said, with the hope of creating over the next few years, “parity and retention rates among all of these groups.” The company transferred $40 million in Q3 to the Best Buy Foundation to support the initiatives.
Gartner identified “digital dexterity,” workforce automation via artificial intelligence, and hybrid work with a distributed employee base as key future-of-work trends confronting chief information officers. Technology to promote collaboration is more important than ever, said Gartner. It estimates 48% of employees globally will work remotely post-pandemic, compared with 30% before: Organizations should “expand their hybrid worker population to enable more flexibility of workforce management, both for cost savings and to address temporary absences.”
Consumers are using different types of payments as they try to shop safely in person and online during the holidays, found the Electronic Transactions Association and Strawhecker Group (TSG). Nearly three-fourths of U.S. consumers will use electronic payments as their first choice, including traditional credit/debit cards, contactless cards and digital wallets. Eight in 10 have used one-click payment, 37% frequently. TSG cited a 9% increase in spending using credit/debit cards Feb. 1-Nov. 1, with COVID-19 accelerating the shift to cards and digital payments. Since the start of the pandemic in the U.S., spending on credit and debit cards jumped 32% in grocery and retail stores. The survey of 961 consumers was fielded Nov. 9-11.