Qualcomm expects to record revenue gains in Q3 ending June 30 of between $4.5 billion and $4.7 billion from its global settlement with Apple, said finance chief Dave Wise on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. The gains include a one-time “cash payment” from Apple and the “release of related liabilities,” plus “go-forward royalties,” he said. Apple will take a six-year license from Qualcomm with an option for two more years, and will source Qualcomm chipsets for a “multiyear” term, said CEO Steve Mollenkopf. The settlement is “a significant milestone, as it is Qualcomm's first patent license agreement directly with Apple,” rather than through Apple’s contract manufacturers, he said. “There's a lot of tension removed out of the system as a result of these settlements,” he said. “I really like the opportunity to have the two teams just working together on products in the future.” Qualcomm downgraded its forecast for calendar 2019 smartphone chipset sales by 50 million units to 1.85 billion units “due to continued weakness in China and a lengthening of the handset replacement cycle, potentially reflecting a pause in advance of 5G rollouts,” said Wise. “We now expect global handset units to decline slightly year over year.” Global smartphone shipments declined 6.6 percent to 310.8 million units, “a clear sign that 2019 will be another down year,” said IDC Tuesday (see 1905010173).
Qualcomm expects to record revenue gains in Q3 ending June 30 of between $4.5 billion and $4.7 billion from its global settlement with Apple, said finance chief Dave Wise on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. The gains include a one-time “cash payment” from Apple and the “release of related liabilities,” plus “go-forward royalties,” he said. Apple will take a six-year license from Qualcomm with an option for two more years, and will source Qualcomm chipsets for a “multiyear” term, said CEO Steve Mollenkopf. The settlement is “a significant milestone, as it is Qualcomm's first patent license agreement directly with Apple,” rather than through Apple’s contract manufacturers, he said. “There's a lot of tension removed out of the system as a result of these settlements,” he said. “I really like the opportunity to have the two teams just working together on products in the future.” Qualcomm downgraded its forecast for calendar 2019 smartphone chipset sales by 50 million units to 1.85 billion units “due to continued weakness in China and a lengthening of the handset replacement cycle, potentially reflecting a pause in advance of 5G rollouts,” said Wise. “We now expect global handset units to decline slightly year over year.” Global smartphone shipments declined 6.6 percent to 310.8 million units, “a clear sign that 2019 will be another down year,” said IDC Tuesday (see 1905010173).
A year after Toyota announced it would introduce dedicated short-range communications systems on vehicles sold in the U.S. starting in 2021 (see 1805110014), the automaker decided to “pause its deployment,” it told the FCC, posted Monday in docket 13-49. Though there continues to be “general excitement about DSRC and the benefits of widespread deployment among key stakeholders,” Toyota hasn’t seen “significant production commitments from other automakers.” The “cooperative safety benefits” won't “be fully realized without greater automotive industry commitment to deploy the technology,” it said. Toyota expressed confidence a year ago that the FCC “would implement a sharing mechanism for unlicensed operations in the 5.9 GHz band only if testing fully validated that such operations could safely occur in the band and not disrupt the current or future deployment of DSRC technology by existing licensees,” it said. But the “regulatory environment” for the 5.9 GHz band since has become “even more uncertain and unstable,” it said. In addition to the “long-standing pending proceeding” involving unlicensed operation in the band, the agency recently launched a second proceeding to explore “reallocating channels away from DSRC” to cellular vehicle to everything technology, it said. “The chance that DSRC operations could be subject to harmful interference from unlicensed operations or other technologies should they be permitted in the band, that channels used for DSRC could be reallocated after services using those channels have entered the market, or that spectrally-inefficient band fragmentation could impair the ability to expand DSRC services and applications over time creates a substantial and arguably insurmountable risk.”
A year after Toyota announced it would introduce dedicated short-range communications systems on vehicles sold in the U.S. starting in 2021 (see 1805110014), the automaker decided to “pause its deployment,” it told the FCC, posted Monday in docket 13-49. Though there continues to be “general excitement about DSRC and the benefits of widespread deployment among key stakeholders,” Toyota hasn’t seen “significant production commitments from other automakers.” The “cooperative safety benefits” won't “be fully realized without greater automotive industry commitment to deploy the technology,” it said. Toyota expressed confidence a year ago that the FCC “would implement a sharing mechanism for unlicensed operations in the 5.9 GHz band only if testing fully validated that such operations could safely occur in the band and not disrupt the current or future deployment of DSRC technology by existing licensees,” it said. But the “regulatory environment” for the 5.9 GHz band since has become “even more uncertain and unstable,” it said. In addition to the “long-standing pending proceeding” involving unlicensed operation in the band, the agency recently launched a second proceeding to explore “reallocating channels away from DSRC” to cellular vehicle to everything technology, it said. “The chance that DSRC operations could be subject to harmful interference from unlicensed operations or other technologies should they be permitted in the band, that channels used for DSRC could be reallocated after services using those channels have entered the market, or that spectrally-inefficient band fragmentation could impair the ability to expand DSRC services and applications over time creates a substantial and arguably insurmountable risk.”
A year after Toyota announced it would introduce dedicated short-range communications systems on vehicles sold in the U.S. starting in 2021 (see 1805110014), the automaker decided to “pause its deployment,” it told the FCC, posted Monday in docket 13-49. Though there continues to be “general excitement about DSRC and the benefits of widespread deployment among key stakeholders,” Toyota hasn’t seen “significant production commitments from other automakers.” The “cooperative safety benefits” won't “be fully realized without greater automotive industry commitment to deploy the technology,” it said. Toyota expressed confidence a year ago that the FCC “would implement a sharing mechanism for unlicensed operations in the 5.9 GHz band only if testing fully validated that such operations could safely occur in the band and not disrupt the current or future deployment of DSRC technology by existing licensees,” it said. But the “regulatory environment” for the 5.9 GHz band since has become “even more uncertain and unstable,” it said. In addition to the “long-standing pending proceeding” involving unlicensed operation in the band, the agency recently launched a second proceeding to explore “reallocating channels away from DSRC” to cellular vehicle to everything technology, it said. “The chance that DSRC operations could be subject to harmful interference from unlicensed operations or other technologies should they be permitted in the band, that channels used for DSRC could be reallocated after services using those channels have entered the market, or that spectrally-inefficient band fragmentation could impair the ability to expand DSRC services and applications over time creates a substantial and arguably insurmountable risk.”
If Verizon markets YouTube TV at a “meaningful bundled discount,” it could “accelerate subscriber growth” for the streaming video service, which ended 2018 with about 1 million subscribers and raised monthly fees from $35 to $45 to $50 within the past 12 months, BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors Friday. Verizon said Tuesday it's bringing YouTube TV to customers across platforms this year. Greenfield cited Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg saying the provider wants to focus on the network, platform and integration but not invest in a TV platform or content. He touted Verizon’s distribution, network and brand for being able to attract partnerships like Google’s with YouTube TV. “Time will tell how serious Verizon is about marketing YouTube TV,” said Greenfield, but if it does push hard, pay attention, because its marketing muscle could “make a huge dent” in a 5 million subscriber threshold required for Google to impact the overall broadcast-cable ecosystem. He imagined YouTube TV having enough future clout to win rights to something as high-profile as NFL Sunday Ticket, which AT&T/DirecTV owns through 2022. YouTube TV’s recent price hike “gave us pause,” said the analyst, who believes there’s more to Google’s strategy than being “just another distributor of the bloated legacy bundle.” He believes Google finds a way to scale the service to where it can have leverage. YouTube TV provides “one area of consumer data Google is missing today,” said Greenfield. It also gives Google a route to the access TV ad spending, which Greenfield pegged at $70 billion in the U.S.; the ability to mingle YouTube content with linear TV content; and an opportunity to "replace Nielsen’s antiquated measurement standard.”
If Verizon markets YouTube TV at a “meaningful bundled discount,” it could “accelerate subscriber growth” for the streaming video service, which ended 2018 with about 1 million subscribers and raised monthly fees from $35 to $45 to $50 within the past 12 months, BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors Friday. Verizon said Tuesday it's bringing YouTube TV to customers across platforms this year. Greenfield cited Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg saying the provider wants to focus on the network, platform and integration but not invest in a TV platform or content. He touted Verizon’s distribution, network and brand for being able to attract partnerships like Google’s with YouTube TV. “Time will tell how serious Verizon is about marketing YouTube TV,” said Greenfield, but if it does push hard, pay attention, because its marketing muscle could “make a huge dent” in a 5 million subscriber threshold required for Google to impact the overall broadcast-cable ecosystem. He imagined YouTube TV having enough future clout to win rights to something as high-profile as NFL Sunday Ticket, which AT&T/DirecTV owns through 2022. YouTube TV’s recent price hike “gave us pause,” said the analyst, who believes there’s more to Google’s strategy than being “just another distributor of the bloated legacy bundle.” He believes Google finds a way to scale the service to where it can have leverage. YouTube TV provides “one area of consumer data Google is missing today,” said Greenfield. It also gives Google a route to the access TV ad spending, which Greenfield pegged at $70 billion in the U.S.; the ability to mingle YouTube content with linear TV content; and an opportunity to "replace Nielsen’s antiquated measurement standard.”
If Verizon markets YouTube TV at a “meaningful bundled discount,” it could “accelerate subscriber growth” for the streaming video service, which ended 2018 with about 1 million subscribers and raised monthly fees from $35 to $45 to $50 within the past 12 months, BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors Friday. Verizon said Tuesday it's bringing YouTube TV to customers across platforms this year. Greenfield cited Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg saying the provider wants to focus on the network, platform and integration but not invest in a TV platform or content. He touted Verizon’s distribution, network and brand for being able to attract partnerships like Google’s with YouTube TV. “Time will tell how serious Verizon is about marketing YouTube TV,” said Greenfield, but if it does push hard, pay attention, because its marketing muscle could “make a huge dent” in a 5 million subscriber threshold required for Google to impact the overall broadcast-cable ecosystem. He imagined YouTube TV having enough future clout to win rights to something as high-profile as NFL Sunday Ticket, which AT&T/DirecTV owns through 2022. YouTube TV’s recent price hike “gave us pause,” said the analyst, who believes there’s more to Google’s strategy than being “just another distributor of the bloated legacy bundle.” He believes Google finds a way to scale the service to where it can have leverage. YouTube TV provides “one area of consumer data Google is missing today,” said Greenfield. It also gives Google a route to the access TV ad spending, which Greenfield pegged at $70 billion in the U.S.; the ability to mingle YouTube content with linear TV content; and an opportunity to "replace Nielsen’s antiquated measurement standard.”
Josh.ai continued its integration expansion with Dish Network, announcing Thursday its voice control platform works with the Hopper family of set-top boxes. Users with Josh and Dish can use natural language cues to navigate guide, menu, play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and “select television companies,” said the companies. Examples of voice commands for the Hopper interface are: “watch the Weather Channel,” “Channel 200,” “Next Channel,” “Guide,” “DVR” and “Watch ESPN, turn down the volume on the TV, open shades to 30 percent and turn on the lights.” Josh announced other integrations recently with LG, Savant and Yamaha.
Josh.ai continued its integration expansion with Dish Network, announcing Thursday its voice control platform works with the Hopper family of set-top boxes. Users with Josh and Dish can use natural language cues to navigate guide, menu, play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and “select television companies,” said the companies. Examples of voice commands for the Hopper interface are: “watch the Weather Channel,” “Channel 200,” “Next Channel,” “Guide,” “DVR” and “Watch ESPN, turn down the volume on the TV, open shades to 30 percent and turn on the lights.” Josh announced other integrations recently with LG, Savant and Yamaha.