A record-high 71% of U.S. homes were using content streaming or download services when canvassed July 24-26, said CTA Thursday. Nearly one in 10 booked telehealth appointments or other online health services, it said: “Different types of streaming and download services remain a primary way for households to stay entertained during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as some live sports return to TV, notable new albums drop and exciting video games release.”

Despite being locked out of the U.S. market due to government restrictions, Huawei became the leading global smartphone vendor in Q2, the first quarter in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple led, reported Canalys Thursday. The Chinese tech manufacturer shipped 55.8 million devices, down 5% year on year, overtaking second-place Samsung, whose 53.7 million smartphone shipments plummeted 30%. China has “emerged strongest from the coronavirus pandemic, with factories reopened, economic development continuing and tight controls on new outbreaks,” said the research firm. Analyst Ben Stanton attributed results to COVID-19, saying Huawei took “full advantage of the Chinese economic recovery to reignite its smartphone business.” Samsung has less than 1% share in China, while its core markets -- Brazil, India, the U.S. and Europe -- were hit by the coronavirus. It will be hard for Huawei to maintain its lead long term, said analyst Mo Jia, because major channel partners in key regions, such as Europe, are “increasingly wary” of carrying Huawei devices; they're taking on fewer models and bringing in new brands “to reduce risk.” Strength in China alone “will not be enough to sustain Huawei at the top.”

Some 83% of consumers who use such services had their most recent telehealth visit at least partially paid by insurance, said Parks Associates Thursday. In the past 12 months, 41% of U.S. broadband households used a telehealth service, nearly tripling year over year, it said. The pandemic pushed virtual solutions “to the forefront of healthcare,” said President Elizabeth Parks: Sweeping regulatory changes and changing consumer preferences on remote vs. in-person care created “an enormous shift."

PayPal rode the pandemic’s e-commerce spike to its “strongest quarter” since eBay spun it off as an independent public company five years ago, said CEO Dan Schulman on a Q2 investor call Wednesday evening. “Merchants are embracing a digital-first strategy, and these trends have fueled the rapid rise of digital payments. These are durable and meaningful tailwinds.” Q2 transactions grew 26% to 3.7 billion, “rivaling the volumes that we usually experience during the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday,” said Schulman. PayPal added 21.3 million new customers, a 140% increase from the 2019 quarter, he said. “Net new actives” in Q2 exceeded the number of new customers added in all of 2016, he said. PayPal ended the quarter with 346 million active accounts, he said. “Given our momentum, I believe that we will add approximately 70 million net new actives this year.” PayPal is seeing “a tremendous amount of new cohorts coming in that have never used e-commerce before,” he said. Seniors are “the fastest-growing segment of net new actives,” he said. The stock closed 4.3% higher Thursday at $192.51.

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry sidestepped our questions during her Northern Virginia Technology Council video chat Wednesday (see report, July 30 issue) about how the pandemic was affecting consumer demand for more discretionary tech products like premium TVs. “We haven’t talked about that publicly,” she said. “About a trillion dollars of spend” last year went to sporting events, movies, cruises and vacations, she said. “A minuscule amount of that is being spent right now. Spending is moving into other buckets because of the way we are living our lives. I just think the idea of what might be discretionary and not will evolve over time because we’re living our lives in a way that is completely unique to anything that has come before.”

Dolby quarterly revenue may fall 22% year over year on COVID-19 effects including “on production volumes and the worldwide shutdown of the exhibition business,” forecast Dougherty & Co.'s Steven Frankel. Nevertheless, the analyst noted its application programming interface strategy is “beginning to take shape,” citing deployments by SoundCloud and others. Dolby didn't comment Thursday ahead of Monday's report.

Qualcomm is leaving unchanged its pre-COVID forecast that smartphone OEMs will ship 175 million to 225 million 5G handsets this year, said CEO Steve Mollenkopf on a Q2 call Wednesday. Launches across all regions “remain on track,” but “we expect some minor changes to the launch timing and sell-through of certain devices,” said Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala. A "few regions” are experiencing “minor delays” in network deployments, said Mollenkopf. Stay-at-home mandates “highlight the critical role” broadband plays, he noted: The “mission” to deploy “breakthrough wireless technologies like 5G has been reinforced and amplified.” The stock closed 15.2% higher Thursday at $107.19. Global smartphone shipments declined by about 21% in Q2, said Mollenkopf. He's encouraged Chinese smartphone demand recovered “month over month” in Q2 after the “sharp decrease” in Q1 “coinciding with COVID-19 restrictions,” he said. “This provides a basis to model rest-of-world handset demand trends.” Without that rebound, Q2 smartphone demand would have been down 30%, he said. Nearly three-quarters of new smartphone models introduced this year in China are 5G, said President Cristiano Amon: China is poised for “broad penetration."

The pandemic is creating challenges and “opportunities for us and our industry,” supplying headsets for COVID-19's “hybrid work environment,” said Poly interim CEO Bob Hagerty on a quarterly call Tuesday. “Hybrid working trends are here to stay.” It’s estimated 30% to 40% of employees globally “will continue to work from home, with many adopting a flexible work schedule, splitting their time between the office and home.” The “net effect” is a bigger total addressable market “and a long-term growth opportunity for our company, which we are working aggressively to capitalize on,” he said. Headset demand remains “elevated,” putting stress on Poly’s supply chain, said Hagerty. “Our factory in Mexico is capable of running at full capacity, but we are having to flex our production based on component availability.” The stock closed 17.4% higher Wednesday at $21.89.

Increased "working and schooling from home" due to COVID-19 resulted in a strong PC market in Q2, said Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su on a Tuesday investor call. Desktop processor sales declined sequentially, but AMD had record quarterly unit shipments and revenue in laptop processors. AMD 90 days ago expected COVID-19-related weakness to bring the PC market down in the second half, she said: It’s now expecting PC processor sales will grow. The pandemic increased the “overall” PC market and stimulated a “strong shift from desktop to notebooks,” she said. “The second half will continue to be good for notebooks and PCs overall and that's part of this idea that PCs are now essential.” The stock closed 12.5% higher Wednesday at $76.09.

Lattice Semiconductor’s consumer business sales declined 17% from Q1 and 43% from the year-ago Q2, said CEO Jim Anderson on a Tuesday evening investor call. Lattice supplies processors for smart home devices and other consumer tech products. “The decline reflects a full quarter of COVID-19 demand impact as well as the expected shift in the mix of our revenue profile over time,” said Anderson. “We remain focused on serving the areas of the consumer market that include applications with consistent multiyear revenue streams and higher margins, where our solutions are enabling customers to differentiate their products.”