Garmin is “no exception” to COVID-19's “unprecedented economic changes," said CEO Clifton Pemble on a Q1 call Wednesday. Though Garmin, like most others, is withdrawing 2020 guidance, it’s “optimistic for the long term,” he said. “Our supply chain is healthy, and we've not missed any opportunities.” But April sales to retailers “are trending about 40% lower than last year, as many retailers have curtailed operations and consumer activity has been severely limited by government restrictions,” he said. “We expect these trends to continue throughout the second quarter as restrictions remain in place.” Product registrations “are strong in those regions where restrictions allow the kinds of activities our products are known for,” said Pemble. “We're encouraged by that.” With much brick-and-mortar retail activity shut or inhibited, “online and web has been very strong,” he said. “Our website growth has been phenomenal during this period, and we've been adding to our capabilities on the website to be able to support sales strategies there. With all of that said, our retailers remain very important to us. And as soon as they can come back online, we'll certainly be supporting them.”

Best Buy will begin opening an unspecified number of stores -- initially by appointment only -- after temporary store traffic shutdowns due to COVID-19 restrictions (see 2004150076). “At some point soon, we will invite customers to shop Best Buy in person, in innovative ways that follow strict social distancing practices and use proper protective equipment,” said CEO Corie Barry in a Tuesday update. It will begin offering in-home services in May, Barry said. It's deemed an “essential” retailer under state restrictions during the coronavirus crisis, but the conversation is “starting to move” from essential to “safe,” said Barry.

Advance Micro Devices expects 25% revenue growth in 2020, plus or minus 5 points, “despite expectations of weaker COVID-19-related consumer demand," said Chief Financial Officer Devinder Kumar on a Q1 call Tuesday. It's one of the few tech companies to not suspend or withdraw guidance. CEO Lisa Su concedes “there’s a lot of questions about visibility.” AMD has “a lot of positives in terms of market drivers” that give the company “good visibility,” she said. “There’s lots of anticipation around the consoles” launching in time for holiday, she said of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. “There’s no change in our view, as it relates to COVID-19.”

Some 80% of U.S. consumers are watching more TV and online video since the start of COVID-19 social distancing, said a Comcast survey. Thirty-two percent watch “a couple hours more per week,” 22% one-two hours per day more, and a quarter are watching two hours-plus more daily. Among the most viewed are news (49%), comedies (48%) and dramas (41%). On types of advertisements they are open to seeing now, consumers said those from food and beverage (51%), financial (28%) and technology (24%) companies. More than half said brands should incorporate messaging on COVID-19 into their ads “if it is tasteful.” Also Tuesday, Parks Associates said that 6 million more U.S. broadband households subscribed to an over-the-top video service since Q1 2019. Three-quarters of households now subscribe. The most popular shows during the period were Netflix’s Ozark, Money Heist and Tiger King; Parasite was the most popular movie. Parks cited Reelgood data indicating a shift to comedies among its 4.8 million OTT users.

COVID-19-induced business closures and stay-at-home restrictions “disproportionately affected” small- and medium-size businesses, and UPS is seeing “a dramatic shift in consumer shopping behavior,” said CEO David Abney on a Q1 investor call Tuesday. “By late March, residential deliveries approached nearly 70% of our volume and drove increased delivery costs.” Business-to-consumer e-commerce traffic “spiked early” in the pandemic, resulting in a 15% increase in “total average daily stops,” by the end of the quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Brian Newman. The “brick-and-mortar world has had a reset” toward online sales that likely will last post-pandemic, said Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer Scott Price. “What that reset will mean into the long term is not yet clear until we emerge into recovery,” he said. “But I think that there is now a behavior that is baked.”

ICANN revenue could drop 5% over FY 2021-2025 due to COVID-19, officials said at a Tuesday webinar. The $11.1 million decrease is expected to come from fewer domain name registrations and fees from contracted parties such as registries and registrars, said Director-Financial Planning and Analysis Shani Quidwai. The webinar was to allow public feedback on a proposed five-year strategic, operating and financial plan, and FY 2021 (ending June 30) operating plan and budget. The drafts published in December are now slightly obsolete and have been tweaked before expected board approval next month, said Chief Financial Officer Xavier Calvez. The nonprofit expects the pandemic to affect all its planned activities and finances for the rest of this year and all the next fiscal year, which is why it developed a new set of financial projections, he said. Changes to the revised documents include the lower revenue projection and reduced personnel costs due to less hiring and less travel and meeting cost because of travel restrictions. Plans for a new round of generic top-level domain names remain unchanged, Quidwai said. The organization is in good shape to weather the crisis because of a stable reserve fund and control over its finances, said CEO Goran Marby, but there's "a lot of uncertainty going forward" that will affect ICANN as an institution.

T-Mobile joined other national carriers Monday (see 2004270050) in extending through June 30 its pledge to the FCC to Keep Americans Connected. CenturyLink also extended to June 30, as did Midco and Sparklight.

SiriusXM “migrated” 5,500 employees and contractors to work from home in “mere days” after the pandemic hit, but still experienced a “substantial disruption of our call center staffing,” said CEO Jim Meyer on a Q1 investor call Tuesday. Staffing fell 50% to 60%, “lengthening hold times, increasing abandoned rates and reducing our ability to handle customer needs and support our sales campaigns,” he said. “We have made significant improvement here, but I don't expect us to get back to our normal levels until stay-at-home orders are lifted.” With lockdown orders across most of the U.S., “we see an opportunity to get more Americans to stream SiriusXM, as well as a unique occasion to get our existing subscribers to stream more,” he said. A “close proxy” of the automotive shows sales down roughly 55% to 60%, said Chief Financial Officer David Frear. That’s “not quite as bad as we thought, and many states are now reevaluating whether auto dealer showrooms should remain closed,” he said. Lower auto sales today mean “fewer conversion opportunities three months from now,” when free trials expire, he said.

With New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) asking the Trump administration to keep the Javits Convention Center open as a 2,500-bed COVID-19 Army field hospital through the fall flu season (see 2004270032), NAB is “carefully monitoring this new development,” emailed spokesperson Dennis Wharton Monday. “Safety of our NAB community will always be our number one priority, but at this point, we are committed to NAB Show New York at the Javits Center and look forward to helping the industry get back to business in October.” The show is scheduled for Oct. 21-22.

ICANN's board is acting to minimize risks associated with coronavirus, Chairman Maarten Botterman blogged last week. It's working to reduce the possibility that directors might contract the virus. This includes avoiding all ICANN-related travel through September and canceling a planned in-person May workshop, a spokesperson told us Monday. To ensure decisions and progress continue, directors are holding weekly information calls and special virtual meetings, he said. Directors also are prioritizing work to ensure that what must be done under the bylaws or on time-sensitive issues can be handled, the spokesperson said. "The overall expectation is that output/productivity will be reduced because of the pandemic-related causes, such as illness, family commitments, etc. They're hoping the prioritization will ensure focus." The work plan includes "hot topics" such as the proposed sale of .org registry Public Interest Registry, how best to support the next ICANN remote meeting, and domain name system abuse, Botterman wrote. The board will now generally concentrate on bylaw-mandated responsibilities such as the FY 2021 budget and developing a policy for generic top-level domain name registration data that complies with the EU general data protection regulation.