Global smartphone sales to end users declined 6.8% year over year in Q3 to 342.3 million handsets, reported Gartner Tuesday. “Component shortages disrupted production schedules, leading to lower inventory and delayed product availability, which eventually impacted sales to end-users,” said Gartner. Samsung maintained top global share at 20.2%, but Apple stormed into second place past Xiaomi via its nearly 20% increase in units to 48.46 million iPhones.

Registration opens Dec. 9 for the digital component of CES 2022, Jean Foster, CTA senior vice president-marketing and communications, told a virtual media briefing Thursday. All of the media day news conferences will be livestreamed on the digital platform, and available for on-demand playback through the end of January, she said. “A lot” of the CES 2022 conferences, though not all, will also be livestreamed, and those that aren't will be recorded onsite, available for playback for nearly a month after the event, said Foster. “The goal is to bring as much of this to you as possible.”

CTA “welcomes manufacturer efforts” to promote self-service repair of “complex, highly integrated, and world-changing consumer technology products,” emailed Walter Alcorn, vice president-energy and sustainability policy, of Apple’s decision to make its parts, tools and manuals available for consumers who are comfortable servicing their own devices (see 2111170034). “As manufacturers assume more responsibility for product safety and security long after their devices are sold to consumers, it’s important to find the balance between safety and empowering consumers to repair their devices," said Alcorn Wednesday.

Qorvo sees the industry "working through” chip shortages, even if the crunch forces 5G smartphone OEMs to leave some business on the table for calendar 2021, said CEO Bob Bruggeworth on a call Wednesday for fiscal Q2 ended Oct. 2. Chip shortages for tech devices are most acute in SoCs for MacBooks, not “RF front-ends” for 5G smartphones, “at least not from us,” said Bruggeworth, who chairs the Semiconductor Industry Association board. Chief Financial Officer Mark Murphy said the outlook for fiscal Q3 ending early January is for an 11% revenue decline sequentially even at the high end of guidance, reflecting “broad-based challenges in supply,” he said. “Our external supply chain is still recovering from disruptions in September, including shutdowns in Southeast Asia. Beyond that, select materials, products and production capacity remain tight.” In smartphones, “even where channel inventory for certain parts is healthy, customers lack silicon chips” to produce finished handsets, he said. “Given the supply and demand effects, we now see 5G smartphone volumes coming in below” the previously targeted 550 million handset shipments globally in calendar 2021, he said.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon had a relatively positive take on the semiconductor industry’s demand-supply imbalance when he said on a call Wednesday for fiscal Q4 ended Sept. 26 that the company expects “material improvements” to its supply by Dec. 31. He credited increases in capacity at Qualcomm’s suppliers, plus the company’s successful execution of its “second-sourcing initiatives.” Assurances of better supply are reflected in Qualcomm’s guidance for fiscal Q1 ending late December, he said. The company expects 16% sequential revenue growth at the high end of its guidance, plus 32% year-over-year revenue growth in its handset business. Android at the premium tier “is the primary growth driver in our handset business right now,” said the CEO. Like virtually all in the tech industry, Qualcomm in its September quarter endured supply constraints “really across the board,” said Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala. It’s conjecture “how the demand would have played out if there was supply across the industry, but we feel pretty comfortable that the overall supply picture is playing out exactly as we had planned,” he said. Qualcomm now has three parts that are “dual-sourced, that are available,” he said. There also are “capacity expansions with our suppliers that were previously being planned,” he said. The company continues to have “pockets” of the business in which “we would ship more, if we had more, but we see a lot of improvements,” said Amon. The industry will still face “some shortage” in calendar 2022's first half, “but as we get to the second part the year, in general, supply and demand are going to be aligned,” he said. The stock closed 12.7% higher Thursday at $156.11 after Qualcomm reported 56% year-on-year revenue growth in its handset business.

Qualcomm is committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2040, announced the company Monday. This “reflects our belief that environmental sustainability is absolutely imperative, with significant social and economic benefits that require collective action and leadership from Qualcomm and other corporate citizens," said CEO Cristiano Amon. He thinks 5G “will be instrumental in driving an environmentally sustainable future.”

TCL’s 20 XE prepaid smartphone goes on sale Friday at Metro by T-Mobile for $119 and will come soon to Boost Mobile, the company emailed Thursday. The phone has a 6.5-inch HD display, a 5,000-mAh battery with 18-watt fast charging and 13-megapixel triple camera with portrait depth and “super macro” mode. Coming in November to Verizon's Visible.com network is the 5G 20A for under $200. Features include a 6.5-inch HD display, dual speakers with high-res audio and 4,500 mAh battery, said TCL.

The chip shortage "could extend into 2023," though at reduced "scope and severity," said Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler on a Q3 call Thursday. The automaker's Q4 financial metrics will be lower than “previously assumed in the back half of the quarter, and that's the result of chip constraints," he said. This past quarter, metrics "were all sharply higher" over Q2 on "high demand for must-have new products," the company said. The stock closed up 8.7% at $16.86.

Garmin typifies virtually all tech companies that are facing “one of the most challenging supply chain environments in history,” said CEO Cliff Pemble on a Q3 call Wednesday. “Supplies are tight, and we expect freight costs to remain elevated.” Operating profit declined nearly 11% year over year to $283 million, due partly to “higher freight costs affecting gross margin,” he said. Garmin invested in a fourth production facility in Taiwan that's now operational and “will help us fill more orders,” he said. “We’ve been able to secure the kind of inventory that we feel we need to make for a successful year,” said Pemble. “Nobody would ever say they have too much in this environment, and with shipping delays that are taking place that we hear of every day in the news, definitely a higher level of inventory is required.” Garmin sees little to no supply chain improvement “in the near to intermediate term that really changes what’s happening right now, until there is really more capacity brought into the system and some of these bottlenecks get solved,” said the CEO. Pemble answered with a simple “yes,” when asked if he’s confident in Garmin’s ability to have products on shelves for the holiday season. The stock closed down 8.8% Wednesday at $146.21.

CTA picked Web Summit, the annual tech conference in Lisbon, as “digital platform provider” for CES 2022's online component, said the association Tuesday. Web Summit’s event operating system, Summit Engine, “is a cloud-based platform, built to support events with both in-person and digital audiences,” it said. Web Summit, which opens Monday for its 2021 run, has been “quietly building” its Summit Engine software “for nearly a decade to augment our physical events, so moving them fully online during the pandemic was easy for us,” said CEO Paddy Cosgrave. Registration for CES 2022's online component opens in December, said CTA. Picking Web Summit cemented CTA’s decision not to return to Microsoft, which produced CES 2021's all-digital content.