Motorola launched the moto e6 smartphone Thursday for Verizon, starting at $149. The phone has a 5.5-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio, a 13-megapixel camera with portrait mode, headphone jack and 3000 mAh removable battery. Users can watch movies or play games for more than eight hours or listen to songs offline for 109 hours, said the company. The Android phone will also be available via T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, Boost Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Consumer Cellular and Xfinity Mobile, and unlocked on Amazon.com and at Best Buy, B&H Photo and Walmart, it said.
Silicon Labs second quarter revenue rose 10 percent to $206.7 million despite “macro headwinds” affecting the semiconductor industry, while IoT grew to 60 percent of the revenue mix, management said on a Wednesday earnings call. Infrastructure revenue was $44 million, 21 percent of Q2 revenue, Chief Financial Officer John Hollister said, down 4 percent sequentially, with China trade issues “negatively impacting” timing product sales. Responding to a question on Silicon Labs’ relationship with Huawei and whether it will be able to restart shipments to the Chinese electronics manufacturer, Hollister called it a “complex issue” with different products having different types of export control designations. Silicon Labs has been working with the Semiconductor Industry Association and external counsel “to understand the landscape,” and it resumed some shipments, “where possible, with Huawei,” CEO Tyson Tuttle said. Hollister viewed the Q3 guidance it gave Wednesday -- $213 million-$223 million with a decline in infrastructure -- as reflecting “more of a normalized level of business with Huawei.” The China ecosystem remains important to the company, Hollister said, and it continues to “gain traction out of the market with Xiaomi and others.” IoT ecosystems are gaining strong traction with Alarm.com, Amazon, Comcast, Google Home, Signify, Samsung SmartThings, Tuya, Xiaomi and others, he said.
Laser-scanning display developer MicroVision raised $2 million by selling 3.04 million shares of common stock to Toronto real-estate developer Shmuel Farhi, said the company Tuesday. MicroVision will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, it said. Farhi’s purchase price was just over 65 cents a share. The stock closed trading Tuesday unchanged at 70 cents. MicroVision faces a renewed delisting risk under a Nasdaq “delinquency notice” received June 13 after shares sold for under $1 for 30 straight trading days (see 1907190013). MicroVision had $4.6 million cash on hand at the end of Q2, said the company last week.
Intel holds its Q2 earnings call Thursday, and CEO Bob Swan is sure to face questions about reports Intel is in advanced talks to sell its 5G modems business to Apple. Swan reported on a late-April call that Intel was still deciding what to do with the rest of its 5G modems business (see 1904260005), after announcing earlier it was dropping 5G smartphone modems for lack of profit potential (see 1904170004). Evaluating Intel’s future in 5G modems for PCs and IoT devices, including what to do with the company’s “wonderful” patent portfolio, was a "work in progress," said Swan then. Neither Apple nor Intel commented Tuesday on the reports.
Global semiconductor revenue will decline 9.6 percent this year to $429 billion, said Gartner Monday. A weaker pricing environment for memory chips types, plus fallout from the U.S.-China trade dispute and sluggishness in smartphone, servers and PC sales “is driving the global semiconductor market to its lowest growth since 2009,” said Gartner. The U.S.-China trade war “is causing uncertainty over trade rates,” it said. U.S.-imposed restrictions on sales to Huawei “will have a longer-term impact on semiconductor supply and demand,” it said. “We expect that high smartphone inventory and sluggish solid-state array demand will last for a few more quarters,” said Gartner.
Amid sluggish category sales hampered by steep prices, longer ownership cycles and 4G market saturation, smartphones were discounted during sales events last week. Promotions extended beyond the Amazon Prime 48-hour sales event when smartphones led electronics with 20 percent discounts, per Adobe Analytics. T-Mobile touted a Friday promotion for a free phone over 2 years with service. Customers could get four new phones and four lines for $40 monthly per line. Models included are the Samsung Galaxy A10e and LG Q7+ and LG K30. AT&T is giving away an iPhone 8 to customers over 30 months with an unlimited plan. There's also a buy one, get one free promo for current-generation iPhones. Sprint is hoping to steal customers from the other major carriers, offering new customers up to $650 for switching costs.
Gartner expects 5G phones to be 51 percent of total handset sales globally in 2023, it reported Wednesday. Mobile operators began launching such service this year in parts of the U.S., South Korea, Switzerland, Finland and the U.K., “but it will take time for carriers to expand 5G coverage beyond major cities,” it said. Gartner estimates 7 percent of global communications service providers “will have a commercially viable wireless 5G service” by next year: “This will mark significant progress from 5G proofs of concept and commercial network construction work in 2018.” Though 2019's first half saw release of the first fifth-generation smartphones, several OEMs likely will introduce more affordable ones in 2020 in a bid to reverse declining sales, it said. Gartner estimates global smartphone shipments will decline 3.8 percent this year to 1.75 billion units. The researcher projects 5G-capable phones will be 6 percent of total phone sales next year and "as 5G service coverage increases, user experience will improve and prices will decrease.”
About 45 million PCs and tablets incorporating 5G connectivity will be in use globally by 2023, based on a 216 percent compound annual growth rate in sales the next five years, reported Strategy Analytics. The 5G era will give mobile operators “a fresh chance to communicate the advantages and new use cases of high-speed cellular connectivity with consumers, a much needed conversation to bring more devices onto these more efficient networks and to make good on the massive 5G investment,” said SA. Most 5G computing devices in use by 2023 will be tablets and detachable 2-in-1s, it said. Asia-Pacific will have more than 40 percent of the 5G devices in use, followed by North America (29 percent) and Western Europe (21 percent), the researcher said Tuesday.
U.S. consumer tech retail revenue is expected to reach $401 billion this year, said CTA Monday in an upgrade of its January forecast. CTA announced at CES it expected 2019 industry sales to top $398 million. The new forecast downgrades TV industry sales, and smart-speaker adoption is expected to slow. “Growing popularity” of streaming services, plus artificial intelligence-enabled “emerging devices” and connected car technology will be 2019's leading growth drivers, said CTA. “Enthusiasm for AI-powered technologies is skyrocketing,” said President Gary Shapiro. The cloud of “unnecessary tariffs ... threatens to slow down our nation's economic momentum," said Shapiro. CTA expects 2019 sales of Wi-Fi cameras, smart thermostats, smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, smart locks and doorbells and smart switches, dimmers and outlets to reach 28.6 million units, up 19 percent, and $4.5 billion, up 16 percent.
Online tech spending grew 10 percent year on year in the 12 months through March 31, NPD reported Friday. "While consumers are increasingly shopping online, consumers aged 18-34, 35-54, and 55+ are prioritizing their spend across major technology categories differently." Those 18-34 are willing to pay top dollar for notebook PCs and headphones but lower prices for LCD TVs. “Despite these pricing disparities all consumers, especially younger ones, are shopping online for value," said analyst Stephen Baker. "We’re seeing that traditional retailers have been able to apply successful in-store models to their online presence to compete effectively in product and price with online retailers.”