Broadband merger and acquisitions are robust as investors seek to cash in on “society’s digital transformation” driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, CoBank reported. “Over the last year, investors have moved down market, targeting smaller rural operators who have replaced some or all of their copper networks with fiber,” CoBank said: “Institutional investors and strategic buyers have already acquired most of the mid-tier fiber transport companies.” The lender sees a new trend of investors buying wireless ISPs. Friday's report sees few risks: “There are simply too many underlying secular tailwinds for things to soften in a material way.” CoBank funds farm credit associations and rural communications infrastructure.

Costco shuns buy online, pick up in store. “We continue to look at what others do” in BOPIS, said Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti on a quarterly call. “We continue to scratch our heads a little bit.” Some offer BOPIS “because they feel they have to,” he said. “We have people here that study it, and maybe we'll surprise you one day.” NPD estimates more than a third of Q2 online sales were BOPIS. Costco’s “40,000-foot view” of the supply chain amid the pandemic shows most factories in China are “up and running,” said the CFO. “Some production challenges” persist due to component shortages “downstream," especially in high-demand electronics and computers, he said. Costco sells Dell and HP, both recently reporting some shortages (see 2008280054). Costco is "doing very well" procuring additional tech supply, Galanti said Thursday. "We've added some different vendors in some cases." E-commerce sales at the retailer soared 91% in fiscal Q4 ended Aug. 30 from the year-ago period, with TVs, laptops and tablets among “stronger deployments,” said Galanti. “Our e-com sites ran relatively smoothly during the quarter despite the dramatic volume increases,” he said. “We were able to improve our delivery times throughout the quarter as we adjusted to the ramped-up order volumes.” Revenue increased 13% to $52.28 billion.

COVID-19 forced next year's SXSW to go virtual March 16-20, but organizers are working with municipal and public health authorities in Austin to stage an in-person event sometime in 2021, they said Thursday. “This has been such a year of change and we, like the entire world, are reshaping our perspective on how we connect,” said CEO Roland Swenson. “Regardless of platform, we will continue to bring together the brightest minds from creative industries.” Austin pulled the plug on last March's show (see 2003060047).

GSMA postponed MWC Barcelona to June 28-July 1 from early March, and still plans to hold MWC LA as a physical show in October 2021. Delaying the physical MWC Barcelona by about four months will enable GSMA to “contend with external circumstances” of COVID-19, it said. The show will have “virtual elements to complement the overwhelming demand to convene physically,” it said. MWC 2020 in February was the world’s first major trade show to fall to the pandemic (see 2002120056 or 2002120065). Johns Hopkins University ranked Spain eighth in the world Thursday in confirmed coronavirus cases.

Jabil’s $7.3 billion in revenue for fiscal Q4 ended Aug. 31 exceeded the high range of its guidance, reported the contract manufacturer Thursday. There were fewer supply chain disruptions than anticipated, Chief Financial Officer Mike Dastoor told investors, meaning “higher than expected throughput in our plants.” The stock closed up 6.5% at $34.41. Jabil’s diversified manufacturing services segment includes mobility and connected devices, while electronics merchandising services include 5G wireless and cloud infrastructures, said Dastoor. “Teams in both segments quickly moved to capitalize on upside demand, mainly in the mobility, 5G and cloud end markets.” As more people worked and learned from home, Jabil had “good demand for products such as tablets, headphones and smartwatches,” he said. “We expect this dynamic to remain” well into fiscal 2021, he said. “Adoption of 5G will provide a further catalyst for future growth.” The launch of 5G devices “is going extremely well,” he said. Pandemic costs in Q4 at the 100 factory "sites" Jabil runs in 30 countries were $25 million lower than the company expected, said Dastoor. They exceeded $55 million in February when “things were blowing up,” said CEO Mark Mondello. Costs began to “dissipate” in July and improved further through August, he said. Mondello expects the trend to continue, “assuming that the whole road doesn’t blow up again,” at which point “all bets are off."

Some 35% of consumers plan to shop earlier this holiday season, Piper Sandler emailed investors Thursday. More than half of consumers are “very much” avoiding large/crowded stores, up from 49% in June, while 52% expect to shop online more than before COVID-19. The analysts see a “strong pipeline of product cycles” in the second half and in 2021 driven by 5G smartphones, 5G home networking, 8K TVs and PlayStation 5 and Xbox launches. Half of iPhone owners are more interested in buying a new one this year vs. second half 2019 due to the likely launch of 5G models. Average time spent watching TV daily increased to 2.3 hours in September vs. 2.1 in June, twice pre-coronavirus levels. Cable TV (3 hours), Netflix (2.3) and YouTube (2.3) had the highest daily viewership, remaining relatively consistent over the past five months. Disney+ (1.9) exceeded a forecast. Some 43% of September respondents used a telehealth platform in the past three months vs. 28% in June.

“Broad, persistent” cyberattacks are targeting gamers and game companies, reported Akamai Wednesday. The industry incurred nearly 10 billion credential stuffing and 152 million web application attacks 2018-2020, it said. “A notable spike in credential stuffing activity occurred as isolation protocols were instituted around the world.” Much such "traffic was the result of criminals testing credentials from old data breaches in attempts to compromise new accounts created using existing username and password combinations,” the firm said. Game players are subjected to a “steady barrage of criminal activity, largely through credential stuffing and phishing attacks,” said Akamai. “Criminals attempt to access games and gaming services using lists of username and password combinations that are typically available for purchase via nefarious websites and services.”

Universal Electronics Inc.'s Nevo Butler smart home hub with voice assistant is due on the market in late Q4, said CEO Paul Arling on a Wednesday investor call (see here and here). "We have some customers who have not really fallen very much at all,” he said, saying those who had a fully implemented QuickSet system in place last year weren’t as hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid social distancing, those companies were able to provide a “quick install” by a technician or customers, or customers could self-install a cable system that was delivered to them. Do-it-yourself customers followed on-screen instructions after connecting the set-top box to a TV. The QuickSet platform reads information from the device, pings the cloud to identify the box and then “blasts out the information to configure everything,” the corporate chief said. Even if some existing set-tops can be voice-controlled, “they’re two-way RF, not IP-enabled,” said Arling: Those boxes wouldn’t be controllable by existing voice assistants for audiovisual functions, “but they can be by Nevo Butler or a product that utilizes our QuickSet technology.” Nevo Butler doesn’t answer informational questions such as “How tall is Mount Everest?” which Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant do; it focuses on home control.

The pandemic "is becoming a tipping point for telehealth," with the Veterans Administration going from 7,400 remote mental health consultations weekly in early April to 52,600 by April's end, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told the Health Innovation Alliance Wednesday, per prepared remarks. VA virtual primary care visits went from 1,100 to 13,000, and specialty care and rehabilitation visits went from 1,200 to more than 21,000, he said. Other health providers are also having big demand increases for telehealth services, he said, saying the agency has awarded funds.

There were consumer demand downswings in a few key hardware categories in CTA’s biweekly pandemic tracker for “wave 18" ended Sept. 20. The association canvassed 1,000 homes online Sept. 18-20, finding 14% reported buying smartphones the previous week, down from a peak of 20% in “wave 15" ended Aug. 9. Laptop purchases declined to 12% of homes from 17% in “wave 15.” TV buying was down to 11% after peaking at 15% in “wave 16" ended Aug. 23.