TrendForce trimmed its 2021 smartphone production forecast 5 million units to 1.35 billion, citing the “intensifying COVID-19 pandemic in India and Vietnam in April and May.” Production could fall further in the second half “since the pandemic is showing no signs of an impending slowdown in Southeast Asia,” the industry researcher said: Samsung has been relocating smartphone production to Vietnam since 2009. The OEM didn’t comment Wednesday.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr again backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez (R) and Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation in urging President Joe Biden to enable U.S. businesses to provide internet service to Cubans (see 2107150053). “Increasingly, dictators around the world are shutting down Internet connections when people yearning for freedom stand up to those oppressive regimes” and “we are seeing that right now in Cuba,” Carr said Friday. He said he stands with Florida Republicans “to call on the Biden Administration to put its full support behind efforts to end this Internet blockade. American enterprises have the technology capability to beam Internet into Cuba, and we must not lose any time in authorizing and clearing the way for the deployment.”

Xiaomi became No. 2 global smartphone vendor for the first time in Q2, reported Canalys Thursday. The Chinese phone maker had 17% share on 83% shipment growth, behind market leader Samsung, which grew shipments 15% for 19% share. Apple’s share was 14% on 1% unit growth, followed by Oppo and vivo with 10% share each.

Global IT spending will grow 8.6% this year to $4.21 trillion, after 0.9% growth in 2020, reported Gartner Wednesday. Communications services will be the biggest chunk at $1.44 trillion, followed by IT services ($1.18 trillion) and devices ($784 billion). “Technology spending is entering a new build budget phase,” said analyst John-David Lovelock. “This means building technologies and services that don’t yet exist.” While many companies expect revenue declines post-pandemic, “IT spending is accelerating ahead of revenue expectations,” said Gartner.

Public-private partnerships will help drive mobility-as-a-service ride-hailing deployments to “displace” more than 2.2 billion “private car journeys” globally by 2025, from 471 million trips displaced this year, reported Juniper Research Monday. “As the pandemic wanes, MaaS solution providers should view the increasing demand for travel as an opportunity to disrupt established transport provision ecosystems by demonstrating the cost-effectiveness and efficiencies of their platforms.” It cautioned that the need for vendors to rely on high penetration of mobile devices and internet connectivity to fully exploit MaaS offerings “will limit adoption to developed regions.” Juniper forecasts that more than 70% of the displaced private car journeys will occur in Europe and the Far East by 2025.

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security added 34 organizations to its entity list for tighter export restrictions, said Friday's final rule. Fourteen are based in China and “have enabled Beijing’s campaign of repression, mass detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of other Muslim minority groups," said Commerce. Another five were “directly supporting" China's "military modernization programs," it said. A Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson, anticipating the BIS action, told a news conference Friday in Beijing that this list "is in essence a tool for suppressing specific companies and industries in China under the pretext of human rights."

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security added four Myanmar organizations to BIS' entity lists Tuesday for their support of the Ministry of Defense, including through providing telecom services. The companies “pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved” in activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, BIS said. BIS also added telecom company King Royal Technologies to the list for providing satellite communication services for the Myanmar military. King Royal didn't reply to an email sent to an address that has been associated with the company. The moves help bar the companies from doing business with U.S.-affiliated businesses.

The GSM Association said Tuesday it’s expanding its fraud prevention service offerings, in a bid to “enhance the telecoms industry’s capacity to combat robocalling and other unwanted or fraudulent calls.” GSMA is working with vendor Mobileum on a new international fraud deterrent system, it said.

All 127 frequency reconfiguration agreements (FRA) for Mexican border licensees in the 800 MHz band have been negotiated, and the 800 MHz transition administrator approved all but one as license validity issues are cleared up, the administrator said in an FCC docket 02-55 final report Monday. It said as of June 10, licensees in 99.2% of Mexican border FRAs had finished physical retunes and transitioned to new channels. It said band reconfiguration is complete in 55 National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee regions and three U.S. territories. It said it will shut down its website, http://www.800ta.org/, by June 30.

Nearly 4 billion people, half the world’s population, use a smartphone daily, 27 years after IBM’s Simon was launched in the U.S., said Strategy Analytics Thursday. Analyst Neil Mawston called the smartphone “the most successful computer.” Apple’s iPhone “popularized the smartphone in 2007, while Google Android democratized the smartphone with an affordable software platform from 2008,” said analyst Linda Sui. SA predicts 5 billion people will use a smartphone by 2030.